As the COVID-19 crisis began to escalate in Australia, a new institution, the National Cabinet, emerged. This policy brief sets out the National Cabinet’s establishment, structure, and achievements, before turning to key issues requiring attention, concerning the effectiveness, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability of this new institutional arrangement.

Much like what occurs in Australia, this paper argues that while creating a new department can be useful to focus on a high priority issue or to bring together related policy areas, most changes in the United Kingdom are rushed through either to send a political signal or to reward allies.

Machinery of government (“MoG”) changes are the formal transfer of functions from one department to another. These changes may occur at any time, but are most common following an election, particularly where there has been a change of government. MoG arrangements are used to align functions in a way that governments believe will assist in...

Following the November 2014 election, the newly elected Victorian government undertook a departmental restructure, which saw nine departments merged into seven, a reallocation of functions between departments and a number of changes to ministerial portfolios. On 27 May 2015, the Legislative Council passed a motion that the Legal and Social Issues Committee inquire into machinery...