Conference Programme
The 2011 IPAA National Conference was held in Hobart on 25 and 26 August 2011. A range of speaker papers and videos are now available. Please scroll down to view these resources.
Minority Governments. What do they mean for the real Public Servant?Rt. Hon. Winston Peters (NZ), Leader NZ First
CLICK HERE to read the keynote notes
From dictatorship through to democracy, whether First Past the Post or Proportional Representation most political power structures are minority in character whether that is publicly apparent or not. Inner sanctum, controlling cabal or first amongst equals this exists inside Governing Cabinets which themselves comprise a Caucus elite. How important is consent and the aspiration to achieve objectives in an imperfect setting?
Implementing stated objectives often temporary and experimental in construction an all too frequent public servant nightmare. Particular to politics or common in all organisations? How do public servants read the signs, professionally perform their duties, and serve both the system and the State? And what will be the symbiotic relationships between politics and the civil service in an instant IT revolution the shape of which is yet unknown.
New Rules of the Game? How Westminster has adapted to power-sharing government Mr Akash Paun (UK), Senior Researcher Institute for Government
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The UK has long been seen as having a strongly “majoritarian” political system, in which “the unwritten rules of the game” rest upon the expectation of single-party majority government and that therefore many “normal conventions of government would come under challenge” in the event of a hung parliament (Butler 1986).
Those “normal conventions” include the fact that when one party wins a majority of seats, government formation is swift and uncontroversial, policy-making is a matter of intra- but not inter-party negotiation, the victorious party is able (and expected) to implement manifesto commitments, governments are bound by strict collective responsibility, and tend to dominate the legislature.
In May 2010, for the first time in 36 years, the UK general election returned a hung parliament, which was followed by the formation of a coalition government. This paper will address how Westminster has adapted to this new context, and whether the switch to power-sharing government has required the creation of new rules of the game. It will also ask what lessons the UK coalition experience holds for other Westminster systems such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, all of which currently have or have recently had ‘hung parliaments’.
Getting to grips with MinoritiesMr Andrew Murray (WA), Chair of the Western Australian Regional Development Trust
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Were you surprised and unprepared for minority power or influence? Were you ignorant of what it meant? Time you found a means to an end.
The Public Sector in a Minority Government
Panel session facilitated by Peter Thompson
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Hon. David Bartlett (TAS) Mr Rhys Edwards (TAS) Hon. Ruth Forrest MLC (TAS) Dr. Richard Eccleston (TAS)
Former Tasmanian Premier Secretary Independent Member Murchison Associate Professor
Dept. of Premier and Cabinet School of Government, UTAS
Power share or poweshift: who steers the ship of state when a minority government is captain?Lin Hatfield Dodds (ACT), National Director UnitingCare Australia
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Over time, government has outsourced an increasing amount of activity that was once considered the sole responsibility of the state. From employment services to affordable housing to education to prisons management, non-government organisations deliver a massive proportion of Australia’s essential human services. This has delivered a commensurate shift in expertise. Much Australian policy and program design, delivery and evaluation expertise now sits outside government.
From a community perspective, best practice governance requires persistent and iterative collaboration and consultation. Good governance is built on evidence not ideology, and on collaboration not centralised control, to deliver effective leadership for complex and wicked issues. Minority government, with its political imperative to collaborate and consult, is an excellent fit with where expertise is located in Australia’s polity and tackling hard issues effectively. Bring on minority government!
Beyond politics, what are the policy drivers of regionalisation in Australia and globally?
Dr Tony McCall (TAS), Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Regional Development
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This presentation will analyse the key policy drivers beyond the emerging focus on regionalisation in public policy: competition, innovation, collaboration and liveability branding. Examples will be drawn from a range of countries where regionalisation is at the forefront of policy responses to the global challenges facing regions.
The End of Leadership
Professor Jeff Malpas (TAS), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania
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CLICK HERE to read the paper
Contemporary leadership, with its desire for control combined with an increasing individualisation in contemporary culture and lack of genuine ethical practice, fuels a fear of minority government. In an environment where Politics is increasingly seen not as a practice of negotiation but as the operation of control or the attempt to gain control – politics as negotiation, minority government with the power sharing that it requires, has become something to be avoided and even feared.
Yet minority government, which requires a willingness to share power and to relinquish a degree of control, should indeed be seen as bringing attention back to the underlying ethical foundations on which good government, and all forms of human activity, essentially depend. It is an opportunity to replace ‘leadership’ with the ethically aligned ‘communityship’.
Ethically Competent Leadership and Ethically Coherent OrganisationsHoward Whitton (QLD), Fellow, The ANZSOG Institute for Governance
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The recent advent in the Commonwealth of genuine minority government (as opposed to a coalition of parties in an ad hoc conditional alliance), raises new and fundamental questions about appropriate roles for public officials, both appointed and employed, and about the role of the ‘government of the day’. The changes also raise new possibilities for IPAA, which has traditionally spoken for the profession on such matters.
Minority government is not a new phenomenon in Australia at the State level, nor is it unknown in many other ‘Westminster’ derived democracies. But it is not clear that the profession in Australia has a well-considered account of the proper relations between ‘the Government of the Day’ and public officials when that government is inherently unstable. ‘Speaking truth to power’ (in Wildavsky’s immortal terms) becomes much more problematic when it is not clear where power lies today, or may lie tomorrow. Thirty years after Colin Hughes’s classic question: ‘Is keeping the Minister out of trouble all there is to it?’, robust answers are as elusive as ever.
Does the traditional 'arm's-length professional relationship', between a notionally disinterested public service and an actually interested amalgam of political parties, still have meaning? Is ‘client service’ all there is? As the notion of ‘leadership’ is always context-dependent, what could it mean in this new political context? What is the proper balance between institutional and personal responses to ethical challenges? Is there a new role for IPAA in all of this?
Yes, Minister (Hypothetical)
In this session Peter Thompson will lead a Hypothetical discussion on a range of ethical issues in the public sector.
Hypothetical dilemmas have no correct answers and no clear right and wrong responses. Our session will focus on the relationships between Ministers, their staff and people working in their departments.
This session will be highly interactive with both the audience and the expert panel asked to make judgment calls about the issues.
Elverina Johnson (QLD) Damian Bugg QC (TAS) Cheryl Kernot (NSW) Prof. Peter Rathjen (TAS) Howard Whitton (QLD)
Prominent Indigenous Leader Chancellor Director of Social Business Vice Chancellor Fellow
University of Tasmania Centre for Social Impact University of Tasmania The ANZSOG Institute for Governance
Investing in Regions to Make A DifferenceMr John Daley (VIC), CEO of Grattan Institute
CLICK HERE to review the PowerPoint presentation
Australia is increasingly described as a “patchwork economy” – an economy in which some parts of the country boom and others lag. Some regions have faster population growth, more employment opportunities, and provide a wider variety of services, while others are growing more slowly or even shrinking.
Historically, Australian governments have taken a “regional equity” approach to these disparities and responded to Australia’s “patchwork economy” by funding job attraction schemes, regional universities and infrastructure projects to try and kick-start slow-growing regions.
Currently, governments are spending more than $2 billion a year on programs for regional Australia that fail to produce the economic development they are explicitly designed to achieve.
What can governments best do to support those regions – usually on the coast or within an hour or two’s drive from a capital city – that are growing fast and receiving significantly less than their fair share of government services?
What are the implications and opportunities for regional development policies when faced with the new realities of population change in Australia?
Leadership, Power and Integrity
Mrs Barbara Etter, APM (TAS), CEO Tasmanian Integrity Commission
CLICK HERE to review the PowerPoint presentation
CLICK HERE to read the accompanying notes
Lord Acton famously said (1887) “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. It is interesting to reflect on this statement at a time when we are increasingly seeing minority government arrangements at both State and Commonwealth level.
This presentation will examine the concept of ethical leadership in relation to the power dimension, particularly as minority government relationships place increased pressure on players to bargain, negotiate and compromise and learn how to effectively and ethically share power. Explore the concepts of power and influence, the sources of power and the threats to it, and how ethical leadership, based on clear and consistent values, can be tested and challenged in the complex and dynamic environment of politics.
There is a tangible tension between sharing power, establishing the required level of trust with previous “adversaries” and still aintaining individual integrity and the integrity and values of the particular political party. Does power-sharing, for example, diminish the capacity to speak out on key issues or oppose inappropriate reform? And what is the impact on the community? How does public administration and its leaders need to adjust and adapt to such testing power-sharing arrangements?
This presentation will highlight the role and functions of the newly established Integrity Commission in Tasmania and the particular role that it may play in educating and alerting the public sector and community to potential ethical dilemmas in an environment that demands effective but ethical “power-sharing”.
Leadership – Gaining from experienceMr Ian McPhee (ACT), Auditor-General for Australia
The presentation will focus on issues of leadership in the public sector, drawing in particular from audit reports that bear on the essential elements of leadership
CLICK HERE to review the PowerPoint presentation
CLICK HERE to read the paper
Decentralisation and RegionalisationPanel session facilitated by Peter Thompson
Prof. David Adams (TAS) Dr Crispin Butteris (VIC) Will Emmett (VIC)
Tasmanian Social Inclusion Director CEO
Commissioner Bang the Table Pty Ltd Left Right Think Tank
Minority Government - Inertia or advantage? Who decides?
Dr Randal Stewart (NSW) & Katherine Hilyard (NSW), People and Strategy
CLICK HERE to view the PowerPoint presentation
CLICK HERE to view the opening movie
CLICK HERE to download the 'Critical Skills' handout and HERE for the 'Changing Paradigm' Handout
The election of minority governments in Tasmania, Australia and the United Kingdom creates a strategic, political and policy context that is new. The ability of decision makers (politicians and public servants) to respond to this changing context is under question. It is not that decisions stall or fail but rather that decisions are made using blatant political negotiations not new modes of governance, as promised. Strategic inertia rather than strategic advantage is often the product of these overt political negotiations.
New modes of governance that could accompany minority government include citizen centric empowerment and engagement and the use of strategic leadership based on the deployment of strategic intelligence. These modes could help analyse context and build awareness of how to operate in a more outward looking manner rather than within existing inward looking hierarchies. But the opposite seems to be happening with more politics and less strategic thinking and citizen engagement.
We argue that there is a need to develop strategic intelligence of complex networks around minority government decision makers if this failure is to be addressed. Strategic advantage can be achieved in a minority government context but in this context even more effort is required to map networks, manage (internal and external) interpersonal relations in complex ways and performance measure success and failure of outcomes.
Q&A Session (ABC style)Panel session facilitated by Peter Thompson
Andrew Wilkie (TAS) Elizabeth Cullen (QLD) Senator David Bushby (TAS) Annette Lancy (VIC)
Federal Independent State Director Liberal Senator Principal Policy Advisor
Left Right Think Tank Skills Victoria
Matthew Denholm Jan Davis Robert Wallace
Tasmanian Correspondent CEO CEO
The Australian TAS Farmers & Graziers Assoc. TAS Chamber of Commerce & Industry