Marian Simms

Models of Political Accountability and Concepts of Australian Government

Models of political accountability are drawn from views about the nature of government. Too often, however, these views are flawed and/or not made explicit. In particular, the traditional model of government accountability - which will be outlined below - misunderstands the British ‘parent’ system of responsible government. One immediate task for those interested in accountability is to map the basic features of the Australian system (best understood as ‘executive federalism’) in order to provide foundations for new accountability models. As well as delaying the map drawing task, the dominance of the traditional account has also ‘crowded out’ other concepts of accountability. The ‘efficiency’ and ‘democracy’ approaches will be discussed below as basically complementary addition to the current Australian debate over accountability. It is thus argued here that a more eclectic approach drawing from diverse but longstanding strands in the public administration tradition can not only enrich the debate but also help to throw light on new public policy developments such as contracting out.

Accountability in Australian Government: Towards the Year 2000

This symposium is based on a workshop held at the Australian National University on 27 March 1998, sponsored by the Australia Institute, the Centre for Australian Public Centre Management at Griffith University and the Institute of Public Administration, Australia. The Political Science Program, within the Research School of Social Sciences, at the ANU provided a congenial environment for the workshop. Marian Simms is grateful to Barry Hindess for his ongoing support for the ‘Accountability in Australian Government’ project. More particularly Christel Cools, Louise Sims and Wayne Naughton provided technical back-up. Peter McCarthy assisted with library research. Dhammika Dharmapala made useful comments on the final version.

The 1984 Australian elections: Find the women?

There was a record number of women candidates in the 1984 Federal Elections. 105 (25%) ran for the House of Representatives enlarged from 124 seats to 148. 53 (25%) ran for the 48 positions at the half Senate Elections. This resulted in increased representation for women, with 2 new MHRs (including one who moved from the Senate) and after some musical chairs one extra Senator.(1) These were not the numbers predicted by some politicians and commentators on the eve of the December Elections and the increase was certainly not in proportion to the greater number of candidates and seats, taking 1983 as the base year.(2)

The End of Pragmatism? The Coalition Parties in the Early 1990s

This paper is set in the context of various debates about the nature of contemporary party systems. In particular it has been widely argued that within the West at least the traditional parties are everywhere in decline. Some have argued that class style parties have been transformed into ‘catch-all’ style parties. These, in turn, have lost touch with their traditional bases and, almost inevitably, lost their direction. Social movements and alternative parties are said to have moved into the vacuum. These debates are of intrinsic interest. Surprisingly there have been few attempts to assess their relevance for the Australian case. This paper uses the authors recent research on elites within the coalition parties in order to explore the issue of whether indeed these Australian parties have become ‘catch-all’ parties or are in some kind of post ‘catch-all’ phase. The paper concludes that unlike the ‘catch-all’ approach ‘ideology’ is still of major significance for the party elites. If we explore the data, ...

Book Reviews : GOVERNMENT, POLITICS AND POWER IN AUSTRALIA. Edited by Dennis Woodward, Andrew Parkin and John Summers. Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1985. 3rd Edition. 373pp.

concern (i) the structure and purpose of government, (ii) the nature of the political links between the government and the governed, (iii) the structure of political power (p.x). The book is divided into three main sections, each covering a basic question. The first part incorporates a discussion of political institutions. However, the coverage is often lively and provocative, avoiding the pitfall of dryness and dustiness to which many descriptions of institutions are prone. Two chapters on the constitutional crisis of 1975 add interest and controversy. The foundations for helping to evaluate the behaviour of individuals, parties and institutions during that crisis are provided in chapters by Pat Weller (Cabinet and the Prime Minister) and Elaine Thompson (Ministers, Bureaucrats and Policy-Making). The remaining chapters in Part One are about Federalism and the Con-