The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has developed a wide-ranging agenda of national reforms. The Productivity Commission has been given the role of reporting to COAG periodically on the economic 'impacts and benefits' of the reforms. In preparation for its first report, the Commission has been requested to provide this framework report outlining its proposed...

IT’S ALMOST seventy years since Australia’s last federal minority government collapsed in internal disunity and scandal, having gone through two leaders kept afloat by two independent Victorian MPs. But minority governments have been much more common in the states and territories in the intervening years, particularly over the past two decades. Since 1990, minority governments...

This review proposes changes to strengthen the APS to meet the tests of a new century and stay ahead of the game. In particular, it seeks to ensure that the APS is able to provide outcomes of the highest quality for the Australian public, through integrated citizen-centred services, effective regulatory frameworks, and high quality, forward...

On 20 November 2007 then members of the Liberal Party were involved in the distribution of unauthorised election material. This report proposes changes to electoral law to strengthen the prohibition on such activity.

This briefing paper looks at the intergovernmental mechanisms by which federalism operates in Australia, notably the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). In reality there are many issues at play here and countervailing forces at work. Taking a broad view, what seems to be developing is a form of federalism that is regulatory, conditional and prescriptive...