In this audit, we assessed whether DELWP, and councils in their roles as planning and responsible authorities, are managing and implementing the planning system to support the objectives of the Act and the desired outcomes of state planning policies. We also examined: • progress since our 2008 audit in improving oversight of the system and...

This audit found that DELWP and the audited councils are not being fully effective in their management and implementation of the planning system. In particular, planning schemes remain complex and have had mixed success in achieving planning policy objectives.

This report examines three policy areas which have experienced near-constant upheaval: further education, regional governance and industrial policy.

Functionally, regional towns cannot be the city states of history. By necessity, whilst regional towns exist as a centre for the catchment area that sustains it, they are nonetheless subject to and rely upon the patronage of the ‘centre’ that the town ‘relates’ to. In return for this patronage regional towns are bound by the...

Regional economic development, in its various guises, is deployed throughout much of Australia. Whilst it remains a contested activity, conventional wisdom extols the need to embrace complexity, whilst simultaneously imbuing order and control. Insights from the literature reveal that regional economic development organisations are often the primary interface between government and regional socio-economic systems –...