Search titles
Displaying results 31 to 40 of 91.
The New Pacific Diplomacy »
Edited by: Greg Fry, Sandra Tarte
Publication date: December 2015
Since 2009 there has been a fundamental shift in the way that the Pacific Island states engage with regional and world politics. The region has experienced, what Kiribati President Anote Tong has aptly called, a ‘paradigm shift’ in ideas about how Pacific diplomacy should be organised, and on what principles it should operate. Many leaders have called for a heightened Pacific voice in global affairs and a new commitment to establishing Pacific Island control of this diplomatic process. This change in thinking has been expressed in the establishment of new channels and arenas for Pacific diplomacy at the regional and global levels and new ways of connecting the two levels through active use of intermediate diplomatic associations.
The New Pacific Diplomacy brings together a range of analyses and perspectives on these dramatic new developments in Pacific diplomacy at sub-regional, regional and global levels, and in the key sectors of global negotiation for Pacific states – fisheries, climate change, decolonisation, and trade.
Managing Under Austerity, Delivering Under Pressure »
Performance and Productivity in Public Service
Edited by: John Wanna, Hsu-Ann Lee, Sophie Yates
Publication date: October 2015
Contemporary public managers find themselves under pressure on many fronts. Coming off a sustained period of growth in their funding and some complacency about their performance, they now face an environment of ferocious competitiveness abroad and austerity at home. Public managers across Australia and New Zealand are finding themselves wrestling with expenditure reduction, a smaller public sector overall, sustained demands for productivity improvement, and the imperative to think differently about the optimal distribution of responsibilities between states, markets and citizens.
Given ever-shrinking resources, in terms of staffing, budgets and time, how can public managers and public services become more productive, more outcome-driven and more agile? How can we achieve better alignment between ever-growing citizen expectations and the realities of constrained service provision? What can we learn from the best combination of innovation and austerity already being delivered in other countries and sectors, including harnessing the grounded wisdom of frontline service delivery practitioners?
This book focuses on practical ways public managers at home and abroad are dealing with these shared dilemmas. It brings together renowned scholars in the fields of public sector productivity, performance management, ‘frugal innovation’ and budget stringency, with leading international and Australasian practitioners sharing their successes and challenges.
International Review of Environmental History: Volume 1, 2015 »
Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: August 2015
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes.
The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase
Political Life Writing in the Pacific »
Reflections on Practice
Edited by: Jack Corbett, Brij V. Lal
Publication date: July 2015
This book aims to reflect on the experiential side of writing political lives in the Pacific region. The collection touches on aspects of the life writing art that are particularly pertinent to political figures: public perception and ideology; identifying important political successes and policy initiatives; grappling with issues like corruption and age-old political science questions about leadership and ‘dirty hands’. These are general themes but they take on a particular significance in the Pacific context and so the contributions explore these themes in relation to patterns of colonisation and the memory of independence; issues elliptically captured by terms like ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’; the nature of ‘self’ presented in Pacific life writing; and the tendency for many of these texts to be written by ‘outsiders’, or at least the increasingly contested nature of what that term means.
New Accountabilities, New Challenges »
Publication date: April 2015
This important and challenging volume of essays draws on insights from leading academics and public servants from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and elsewhere. It provides an excellent series of critiques of both the systemic accountabilities and the policy processes of government by drawing on meticulously researched, topical and real-world case studies of governance. Its contribution to the understanding of the applied processes of government in this way is exemplary. Topics covered include: restoring trust in government, parliamentary scrutiny of the APS, administrative law and FOI, budgetary reforms, implementation issues, competition policy, indigenous administration, collaboration with the NGO sector, educational reforms and the changes to the Auditor- General’s mandate.
Caretaker Conventions in Australasia »
Minding the shop for government
Authored by: Jennifer Menzies, Anne Tiernan
Publication date: October 2014
In the second revised edition of this monograph, Jennifer Menzies and Anne Tiernan capably chart the often hazardous terrain of the ‘caretaker period’ that ensues from the time an election is called until a new government is formed. This is a landscape fraught with political and administrative dangers – particularly for public servants who are required to ‘mind the shop’ and keep the basically machinery of government going.
The conventions represent an historical accretion of custom, practice and rules, often leavened with uncertainty. In tackling their subject, Menzies and Tiernan draw upon their shared past experiences as public servants and ministerial ‘staffers’ as well as the highest standards of academic scholarship – this is a ‘must read’ for politicians, public servants and students of government. The second edition expands on the first edition by documenting recent controversies and trends which have had an impact on caretaker conventions.
The analysis of the contemporary application of caretaker conventions has been updated and new case studies included – particularly from the last federal election. Also included is additional material about lengthy government formation after election day and the management of caretaker conventions during that time. The New Zealand material has been revised and updated.
The caretaker conventions
Australia (PDF, 127KB)
Australian Capital Territory (PDF, 187KB)
New South Wales (PDF, 234 KB)
Northern Territory (PDF, 175KB)
Queensland (PDF, 94KB)
South Australia (PDF, 224KB)
Tasmania (PDF, 232KB)
Victoria (PDF, 178KB)
Western Australia (PDF, 430KB)
New Zealand (PDF, 280KB)
Watriama and Co »
Further Pacific Islands Portraits
Authored by: Hugh Laracy
Publication date: October 2013
Watriama and Co (the title echoes Kipling’s Stalky and Co!) is a collection of biographical essays about people associated with the Pacific Islands. It covers a period of almost a century and a half. However, the individual stories of first-hand experience converge to some extent in various ways so as to present a broadly coherent picture of ‘Pacific History’. In this, politics, economics and religion overlap. So, too, do indigenous cultures and concerns; together with the activities and interests of the Europeans who ventured into the Pacific and who had a profound, widespread and enduring impact there from the nineteenth century, and who also prompted reactions from the Island peoples. Not least significant in this process is the fact that the Europeans generated a ‘paper trail’ through which their stories and those of the Islanders (who also contributed to their written record) can be known. Thus, not only are the subjects of the essays to be encountered personally, and within a contextual kinship, but the way in which the past has shaped the future is clearly discernible. Watriama himself features in various historical narratives. So, too, certain of his confrères in this collection, which is the product of several decades of exploring the Pacific past in archives, by sea, and on foot through most of Oceania.
Putting Citizens First »
Engagement in Policy and Service Delivery for the 21st Century
Publication date: August 2013
This book explores the ways in which governments are putting citizens first in their policy-making endeavours. Making citizens the focus of policy interventions and involving them in the delivery and design is for many governments a normative ideal; it is a worthy objective and sounds easy to achieve. But the reality is that putting citizens at the centre of policy-making is hard and confronting. Are governments really serious in their ambitions to put citizens first? Are they prepared for the challenges and demands such an approach will demand? Are they prepared to commit the time and resources to ensure genuine engagement takes place and that citizens’ interests are considered foremost? And, more importantly, are governments prepared for the trade-offs, risks and loss of control such citizen-centric approaches will inevitably involve?
The book is divided into five parts:
setting the scene: The evolving landscape for citizen engagement
drivers for change: Innovations in citizen-centric governance
case studies in land management and Indigenous empowerment
case studies in fostering community engagement and connectedness
case studies engaging with information technology and new media.
While some chapters question how far governments can go in engaging with citizens, many point to successful examples of actual engagement that enhanced policy experiences and improved service delivery. The various authors make clear that citizen engagement is not restricted to the domain of service delivery, but if taken seriously affects the ways governments conduct their activities across all agencies. The implications are enormous, but the benefits to public policy may be enormous too.
An Otago Storeman in Solomon Islands »
The diary of William Crossan, copra trader, 1885–86
Edited by: Tim Bayliss-Smith, Judith A. Bennett
Publication date: October 2012
An Otago Storeman in Solomon Islands reaches from inland South Island of New Zealand across to the Solomon Islands during the 1880s. William Crossan’s Otago experience as a versatile storeman with a solid work ethic helped him survive on the Melanesian frontier where he encountered conflicting clans, cannibalism, cheating traders, and co-operative entrepreneurial big men. His diary provides many glimpses into Makiran society as it encountered new ideas, new employment, and western technology. It is a welcome addition to the sparse record of these cryptic copra traders seeking fortunes on the cusp of indigenous tradition and incoming colonialism.
Past Law, Present Histories »
Edited by: Diane Kirkby
Publication date: September 2012
This collection brings methods and questions from humanities, law and social sciences disciplines to examine different instances of lawmaking. Contributors explore the problematic of past law in present historical analysis across indigenous Australia and New Zealand, from post-Franco Spain to current international law and maritime regulation, from settler colonial humanitarian debates to efforts to end cruelty to children and animals. They highlight problems both national and international in their implication. From different disciplines and theoretical positions, they illustrate the diverse and complex study of law’s history.