ABSTRACT: All public policy making and service delivery is spatial, meaning that there is an inevitable and distinctive geography that defines the activities and responsibilities of any government. Australian State governments for most of the twentieth century tended to use functional agencies – usually State departments/ instrumentalities – for the delivery of core policies and services. As with most governments in Western countries, the functional approach was framed at a single, whole-of jurisdiction scale.

Since the 1980s, Australian State governments have gradually replaced certain functional administration frameworks with new spatially based approaches that emphasise whole of government service delivery to meet the needs of a geographically defined local community. These new approaches to policy making and service delivery by Australian State governments cut across portfolio, professional, and institutional barriers and are often targeted at disadvantaged areas. The most recent cases of spatially based programs to address social disadvantage are the local level 'place based' policy and service initiatives; the Brisbane Place Projects in Queensland are examples. This shift to a spatial focus suggests a rescaling of urban governance in Australia. This paper considers whether the concept of rescaling applies in the Australian context as a way of understanding State Government responses to urban disadvantage.