The Search for Policy Coordination: Ministerial and Bureaucratic Perceptions of Agency Amalgamations in a Federal Parliamentary System

The imperative to coordinate is strong, but the means remain contentious. One approach is to amalgamate agencies into a few large organizations, the other to encourage a diversity of policy options. Drawing on the federal amalgamations of departments in Australia since 1987, this paper reports that senior bureaucrats find more policy coordination benefits than costs from working in larger structures, while ministers report a loss of options and a risk of information overload.     

The Debate on Economic and Social Security in the Late Eighteenth Century: Lessons ofa Road Not Taken

The laissez faire political economy of the late eighteenth century was marked by two sharply opposing views of the relation between social security or insecurity and economic growth: one associated with Adam Smith, Turgot and Condorcet; and another associated with Malthus. The latter school, with its faith in the motivating force of insecurity and fear, has been the more influential in subsequent economic thought. But, contrary to prevailing neoliberal stereotypes, Smith, Turgot and Condorcet had much to say to modern students of economics concerning the necessary and positive relationship between social security and economic development. This essay explores their vision of how to improve the life chances of the disadvantaged.     

Italy and Australia: a relationship made and unmade by immigration

Australia's new-found post-colonial ‘independence’ in 1901 initially required it to continue to hold on to the apron strings of its colonial master. After World War II, these needs changed, as did the geopolitical power of the leading nations. For Australia, there would be the need to secure its borders, build its labour power, find security arrangements, and adhere to a cold war framework in its geographical region. The USA and the Asian region fell into Australia's sphere of interest. Italy, on the other hand, was a nation of contrasting interests and perspectives. Besides being located in Europe, the post-war period defined Italy by its participation in the concept of a European community and an entirely different set of allies, concerns and trajectories, which made it position itself in a different orbit than that of Australia. Australia's changing economic and social needs required a new and vast migration program in 1947, which would change the dynamics of its relationships. Enter Italy. The two countries now had common destinies in relation to migration—Australia needed people to help build its country, whilst Italy encouraged its impoverished rural population to emigrate to this distant and foreign land. A relationship was born.     

‘Handle with care’: literature,archaeology, slavery

This article examines the relationship between literary and bioarchaeological approaches to slavery, and investigates how the methods and priorities of each discipline might inform each other in understanding what it was like to be enslaved. Both bioarchaeologists and creative writers have attempted to access the inner lives of enslaved people, yet there has been little interaction between them. This paper offers an account of a research project which brought together a literary scholar, two archaeological scientists and seven creative writers to explore how writing might not only communicate a history understood through archaeological evidence, but could itself inform approaches to that evidence. We discuss two key themes which emerged from the project: Conversation and Caring. These themes were crucial to the interdisciplinary process, as it was only through attention to our relationships with each other that we could begin to reassess the nature of material in each of our disciplines.