This book assesses Australian electoral reforms of the past 30 years using personal interview data and parliamentary debates. Australia has a proud history of being an international leader in electoral administration, and Australian electoral commissions continue to have a professional, non-partisan approach to the management of elections. Yet their independence is constrained by the electoral...

Secretaries of government departments in Australia are the bureaucratic leaders of their generation. They are ambitious, highly-talented executives who have risen to the very pinnacle of their chosen vocation – public service to the Australian nation – usually after having spent most, if not all, of their professional careers dedicated to the public service. They...

This edited volume describes the dynamic intercultural context of land and water management on Indigenous lands.

This book provides a comprehensive coverage of one of Australia’s most historic elections, which produced a hung parliament and a carefully crafted minority government that remains a heartbeat away from collapse, as well as Australia’s first elected woman Prime Minister and the Australian Greens’ first lower house Member of Parliament. The volume considers the key...

The women’s health movement shocked and scandalised when it burst into Australian politics in the early 1970s. It cast the light of day onto taboo subjects such as sexual assault, abortion and domestic violence, provoking outrage and condemnation. Some of the services women created for themselves were subjected to police raids; sex education material was...