Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Australia

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Education and Training of Public Servants

Part of the book series: Governance and Public Management ((GPM))

  • 39 Accesses

Abstract

Australia’s New World variant of Westminster has exhibited features of the anglophone model. Central government is comparatively young, inaugurated around 120 years ago, and has only shaped the national system during the second half of this period. The pattern of education and training has followed the growth and expansion of the Commonwealth’s functions and influence, reflecting prevailing paradigms for the public service, shifting fashions and adaptations to environmental change. This chapter surveys the history of the public service in conjunction with developments in Australia’s government, then provides an overview of the principles and practices that have been important to its evolution in the Australian context, as the Commonwealth grew in scale and functional significance. Once the impact of these changes had been absorbed, there was an extended period of modernisation that also reflected new external pressures relevant to education and training. In the most recent period of reform, the de-professionalising and de-institutionalising of the Australian public service has been countered by a return to responsible government and the rearticulation of the verities of traditional public administration through a focus on skills and capabilities, crafts and values.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    John Halligan, “Changing Patterns of Administration of the Australian States: New paradigms or Old Cycles?” in Towards National Administration: Studies in Australian Administrative History, eds. John J. Eddy and John R. Nethercote (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1994), 184–98. The principles being tested in the English civil service from the mid-nineteenth century were adopted by Australian colonies, but they usually opted for the term ‘public service’. See Robert Parker, Public Service Recruitment in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1942), 18–25.

  2. 2.

    Richard Neville Spann, Government Administration in Australia (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), 252–3. The colonies date from 1788 (New South Wales), 1825 (Tasmania, initially called Van Diemen’s Land), 1827 (Western Australia), 1842 (South Australia), 1851 (Victoria) and 1857 (Queensland).

  3. 3.

    Roger Wettenhall, Public Enterprise and National Development: Selected Essays (Canberra: Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration (ACT Division), 1987).

  4. 4.

    Ross Curnow, “The cage of that bondage of the future? A Bicentennial perspective on the administrative history of New South Wales,” Australian Journal of Public Administration 48, no. 1 (1989): 33; Ross Curnow, “The Career Service Debate,” in Ross Curnow and B. Page, eds. Politicization and the Career Service (Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education and NSW Division of RAIPA, 1989), 11–37; Wettenhall, Public Enterprise.

  5. 5.

    Responsible government was attained by five of the six colonies by 1859.

  6. 6.

    Spann, Government Administration.

  7. 7.

    Only Victoria (1870–1883) had something akin to a spoils system. Gerald E. Caiden, Career Service: An Introduction to the History of Personnel Administration in the Commonwealth Public Service of Australia 1901–1961 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1965), 39.

  8. 8.

    The use of the public corporation for undertaking functions of a business nature appeared first in Victoria as a solution to problems with political interference in railway management; see, Wettenhall, Public Enterprise.

  9. 9.

    Roger Wettenhall, “The Challenges of Administrative History: An Australian Perspective,” in From Colony to Coloniser: Studies in Australian Administrative History, eds. John J. Eddy and John R. Nethercote (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1987), 14–22, 19.

  10. 10.

    Francis Armand Bland, Government in Australia: Selected Readings, 2nd ed. (Sydney: Government Printer, 1944), XIII.

  11. 11.

    Spann, Government Administration.

  12. 12.

    For example, the Victorian Public Service Act 1862 required an examination for candidates seeking admission to the ordinary or professional divisions, but it was a qualifying examination conducted under the authority of Melbourne University. See Parker, Public Service Recruitment, 21.

  13. 13.

    John Halligan, Reforming Public Management and Governance: Impact and Lessons from Anglophone Countries (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2020).

  14. 14.

    Hugh Emy and Owen Hughes, Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict, 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991), 117–8.

  15. 15.

    Curnow, “The Career Service Debate.”

  16. 16.

    Halligan, Reforming Public Management.

  17. 17.

    The Commonwealth of Australia refers to the country as political entity and is incorporated in the Constitution Act 1900, while the term Commonwealth is used for the federal government.

  18. 18.

    Caiden, Career Service, 27, 91; John Halligan and John Power, Political Management in the 1990s (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992), 69–70.

  19. 19.

    Gerald E. Caiden, The Commonwealth Bureaucracy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), 217.

  20. 20.

    Caiden, Commonwealth Bureaucracy, 218.

  21. 21.

    Bruce McCallum, The Public Service Manager: An introduction to personnel management in the Australian Public Service (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1984), 244. Examples were electrical engineering (Cornell) and economics (London School of Economics). See also Public Service Board, Annual Report 1966–67 (Canberra: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1967), 96.

  22. 22.

    The third division mainly covers administrative, clerical, and specialist staff whose entry to the service was determined by an end-of-school examination.

  23. 23.

    Edgar Norman Gladden, “Francis Armand Bland: Australian Public Administration Pioneer—A Biographical Snapshot,” International Review of Administrative Sciences 41, no. 2 (1987): 104.

  24. 24.

    See, for example, Bland, Government in Australia.

  25. 25.

    Roger Scott and Roger Wettenhall, “Public Administration as a Teaching and Research Field,” Australian Journal of Public Administration 39, no. 3–4 (1981): 478–98.

  26. 26.

    McCallum, Public Service Manager, 85.

  27. 27.

    Quoted in Australian Public Service Commission, A History in Three Acts: Evolution of the Public Service Act 1999 (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2004), 65.

  28. 28.

    Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration (New York: Ronald Press, 1948); Halligan and Power, Political Management; Spann, Government Administration.

  29. 29.

    Report on the Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service (London: HSMO, 1854).

  30. 30.

    Report by the Committee of Inquiry into Public Service Recruitment (Chair: R. Boyer) (Canberra: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1959). The Public Service Act 1902 differentiated four divisions, which changed in character over time. The first division consisted mainly of department heads, while the second division included top administrative and management staff.

  31. 31.

    A senior executive service was established in the 1980s, and the notion of a generalist manager who could move between departments was fashionable at the time. See also Halligan and Power, Political Management, 72; John Halligan, “A Comparative Lesson: The Senior Executive Service in Australia,” in The Promise and Paradox of Civil Service Reform, eds. Patricia W. Ingraham and David H. Rosenbloom (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992). In the 2010s, the inflation of salaries for the most senior appointments conveyed a more elitist image.

  32. 32.

    Evolution of the Public Service Act 1999, 49.

  33. 33.

    Evolution of the Public Service Act 1999, 181; Caiden, Commonwealth Bureaucracy, 202.

  34. 34.

    McCallum, Public Service Manager, 243–5, 300–2, 320.

  35. 35.

    Spann, Government Administration; Caiden, Career Service.

  36. 36.

    John Halligan, “Career Public Service and Administrative Reform in Australia,” International Review of Administrative Sciences 57, no. 3 (1991): 345–60.

  37. 37.

    Spann, Government Administration, 255.

  38. 38.

    See for example Caiden, Career Service, 2–4.

  39. 39.

    Report by the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (Chair: H. C. Coombs) (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1976), 169.

  40. 40.

    Coombs Report, 271–72.

  41. 41.

    M. Delaney, Personal Development—some innovations in the Australia Public Service, Newsletter of the Royal Institute of Public Administration ACT Group 5, no. 7 (1979), 6–7.

  42. 42.

    Coombs Report.

  43. 43.

    Michael Pusey, Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-building State Changes its Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Spann, Government Administration, 333.

  44. 44.

    Also influential were the diffusion of ideas among anglophone countries, the advocacy of international organisations and management consultants.

  45. 45.

    Halligan and Power, Political Management, 1992.

  46. 46.

    McCallum, Public Service Manager, 245–246.

  47. 47.

    Australian Public Service Commission, The Australian Experience of Public Sector Reform (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2003), 81.

  48. 48.

    Christopher Pollitt and Liesbeth op de Beeck, Training Top Civil Servants: A Comparative Analysis (Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Instituut voor de Overheid, 2010), https://www.anzsog.edu.au. My thanks to Andrew Podger, former Public Service Commissioner, for clarifying the origins of ANZSOG.

  49. 49.

    Evolution of the Public Service Act 1999, 108–9.

  50. 50.

    The Australian Experience of Public Sector Reform.

  51. 51.

    Advisory Group on the Reform of Australian Government Administration (Chair: T. Moran), Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2010).

  52. 52.

    Stephen Sedgwick, “Public Service Commissioner’s Review,” in Australian Public Service Commissioner Annual Report 2010–2011 (Canberra: APSC, 2011).

  53. 53.

    John Halligan, “Australia,” in Leadership and Culture: Comparative Models of Top Civil Servant Training, eds. Annie Hondeghem and Montgomery van Wart (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

  54. 54.

    For example specialised graduate certificates in public administration or public policy at the University of Canberra.

  55. 55.

    The Thodey review found that annually ‘about 1170 different vendors provide education and training services to the APS. See: Independent Panel of the Australian Public Service review (Chair: D. Thodey), Our Public Service Our Future: Independent Review of the Australian Public Service (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2019), 197.

  56. 56.

    Australian Public Service Commission, Annual Report 2019–2020 (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2020), 15.

  57. 57.

    Australian Public Service Commission, Annual Report 2019–2020, 30.

  58. 58.

    Halligan, Reforming Public Management.

  59. 59.

    Spann, Government Administration, 338–40.

  60. 60.

    Australian Public Service Commission, Annual Report 2019–20, 16; Thodey Review.

  61. 61.

    Jonathan Craft and John Halligan, Policy Advice and the Westminster Tradition: Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

  62. 62.

    Andrew Podger, “Protecting and Nurturing the Role and Capability of the Australian Public Service” (Parliamentary Library Lecture, Canberra, September 10, 2019),

    https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/Vis/vis1920/RoleoftheAPS-PUB. Contrast the position at beginning of the 2010s: Jeanette Taylor, Building Capability in the Commonwealth of Australia (K.U. Leuven: Public Management Institute, 2010).

  63. 63.

    Halligan, Reforming Public Management.

  64. 64.

    Thodey Review.

  65. 65.

    Australian Public Service Commission, Review of the APSC Centre for Leadership and Learning (Canberra: APSC, 2020).

  66. 66.

    Australian Public Service Commission, Annual Report 2019–20, 15; Thodey Review.

  67. 67.

    Glyn Davis, “The first task is to find the right answer…. Public service and the decline of capability” (The Jim Carlton Annual Integrity Lecture, Melbourne Law School, Melbourne, May 7, 2021).

  68. 68.

    Roderick A.W. Rhodes, “Recovering the craft of public administration,” Public Administration Review 76, no. 4 (2016): 638–647; Christine Shearer, Constructing the Craft of Public Administration: Perspectives from Australia (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

  69. 69.

    “APS Craft,” Australian Public Service Academy, accessed January 25, 2023, https://www.apsacademy.gov.au/aps-craft

  70. 70.

    Halligan, Reforming Public Management.

  71. 71.

    Australian Public Service Commission, State of the Service Report 2021–2022.

  72. 72.

    Katy Gallagher, “Albanese Government’s APS Reform agenda” (speech, The Institute of Public Administration Australia, Canberra, October 13, 2022).

Bibliography

  • Advisory Group on the Reform of Australian Government Administration (Chair: T. Moran), Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Public Service Commission. The Australian Experience of Public Sector Reform. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Public Service Commission. A History in Three Acts: Evolution of the Public Service Act 1999. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Public Service Commission. Annual Report 2019–2020. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2020a.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Public Service Commission. Review of the APSC Centre for Leadership and Learning. Canberra: APSC, 2020b.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Public Service Academy. “APS Craft.” Accessed January 25, 2023. https://www.apsacadem.

  • Bland, Francis Armand. Government in Australia: Selected Readings. 2nd ed. Sydney: Government Printer, 1944.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caiden, Gerald E. Career Service: An Introduction to the History of Personnel Administration in the Commonwealth Public Service of Australia 1901–1961. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1965.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caiden, Gerald E. The Commonwealth Bureaucracy. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craft, Jonathan, and John Halligan. Policy Advice and the Westminster Tradition: Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curnow, Ross. “The Cage of that Bondage of the Future? A Bicentennial Perspective on the Administrative History of New South Wales.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 48, no. 1 (1989a): 29–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Curnow, Ross. “The Career Service Debate.” In Politicization and the Career Service, edited by Ross Curnow and B. Page. Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education and NSW Division of RAIPA, 1989b.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curnow, Ross and B. Page, eds. Politicization and the Career Service. Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education and NSW Division of RAIPA, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Glyn. “The First Task is to Find the Right Answer…. Public Service and the Decline of Capability” (The Jim Carlton Annual Integrity Lecture, Melbourne Law School, Melbourne, May 7, 2021).

    Google Scholar 

  • Emy, Hugh, and Owen Hughes. Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict. 2nd ed. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, Kathy. “Albanese Government’s APS Reform Agenda” (Speech, The Institute of Public Administration Australia, Canberra, October 13, 2022).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gladden, Edgar Norman. “Francis Armand Bland: Australian Public Administration Pioneer—A Biographical Snapshot.” International Review of Administrative Sciences 41, no. 2 (1987): 103–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halligan, John. “Career Public Service and Administrative Reform in Australia,” International Review of Administrative Sciences 57, no. 3 (1991): 345–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halligan, John. “A Comparative Lesson: The Senior Executive Service in Australia.” In The Promise and Paradox of Civil Service Reform, edited by Patricia W. Ingraham and David H. Rosenbloom, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halligan, John. “Changing Patterns of Administration of the Australian States: New Paradigms or Old Cycles?” In Towards National Administration: Studies in Australian Administrative History, edited by John J. Eddy and John R. Nethercote, 184–198. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halligan, John. “Australia.” In Leadership and Culture: Comparative Models of Top Civil Servant Training, edited by. Annie Hondeghem and Montgomery van Wart, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halligan, John. Reforming Public Management and Governance: Impact and Lessons from Anglophone Countries. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2020.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Halligan, John, and John Power. Political Management in the 1990s. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Independent Panel of the Australian Public Service Review (Chair: D. Thodey), Our Public Service Our Future: Independent Review of the Australian Public Service. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2019.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCallum, Bruce. The Public Service Manager: An Introduction to Personnel Management in the Australian Public Service. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker, Robert. Public Service Recruitment in Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1942.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Podger, Andrew. “Protecting and Nurturing the Role and Capability of the Australian Public Service.” Presented at the Parliamentary Library Lecture, Canberra, September 10, 2019. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/Vis/vis1920/RoleoftheAPS-PUB.

  • Pollitt, Christopher, and Liesbeth op de Beeck. Training Top Civil Servants: A Comparative Analysis. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Instituut voor de Overheid, 2010. https://www.anzsog.edu.au.

  • Public Service Board. Annual Report 1966–1967. Canberra: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pusey, Michael. Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-building State Changes its Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Report on the Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service. London: HSMO, 1854.

    Google Scholar 

  • Report by the Committee of Inquiry into Public Service Recruitment (Chair: R. Boyer). Canberra: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1959.

    Google Scholar 

  • Report by the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (Chair: H. C. Coombs). Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhodes, Roderick A.W. “Recovering the Craft of Public Administration,” Public Administration Review 76, no. 4 (2016): 638–647.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, Roger, and Roger Wettenhall. “Public Administration as a Teaching and Research Field.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 39, no. 3–4 (1981): 478–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shearer, Christine. Constructing the Craft of Public Administration: Perspectives from Australia. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Spann, Richard Neville. Government Administration in Australia. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, Jeanett. Building Capability in the Commonwealth of Australia. K.U. Leuven: Public Management Institute, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waldo, Dwight. The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration. New York: Ronald Press, 1948.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wettenhall, Roger. “The Challenges of Administrative History: An Australian Perspective.” In From Colony to Coloniser: Studies in Australian Administrative History, edited by John J. Eddy and John R. Nethercote, 14–22 Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1987a.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wettenhall, Roger. Public Enterprise and National Development: Selected Essays. Canberra: Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration (ACT Division), 1987b.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environmental Governance, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    John Halligan

Authors
  1. John Halligan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Halligan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Toon Kerkhoff

  2. Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece

    Denis Moschopoulos

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Halligan, J. (2023). Australia. In: Kerkhoff, T., Moschopoulos, D. (eds) The Education and Training of Public Servants. Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37645-0_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation