SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC POLICY LESSONS FROM AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC POLICY LESSONS FROM AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND Edited by Joannah Luetjens, Michael Mintrom and Paul `t Hart Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760462789 ISBN (online): 9781760462796 WorldCat (print): 1099185215 WorldCat (online): 1099185362 DOI: 10.22459/SPP.2019 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press This edition © 2019 ANU Press Contents Acknowledgements . vii Contributors . ix Abbreviations . xi List of illustrations . xv Foreword . xvii Professor Ken Smith 1 . On studying policy successes in Australia and New Zealand . 1 Joannah Luetjens, Michael Mintrom and Paul ‘t Hart Part I: Policy successes in Australia 2 . Responding to HIV/AIDS: Mobilisation through partnerships in a public health crisis . 29 Lisa Fitzgerald and Allyson Mutch, with Lisa Herron 3 . The Higher Education Contribution Scheme: Keeping tertiary education affordable and accessible . 59 Timothy Higgins 4 . The 53-billion-dollar question: Was Australia’s 2009–2010 fiscal stimulus a good thing? . 87 Alan Fenna and Paul ‘t Hart 5 . ‘Marvellous Melbourne’: Making the world’s most liveable city . .. 113 Emma Blomkamp and Jenny M . Lewis 6 . The Child Support Scheme: What innovative collaboration can achieve . .. 139 Meredith Edwards 7 . The Australian water markets story: Incremental transformation . 165 James Horne and R . Quentin Grafton 8 . National competition policy: Effective stewardship of markets . 191 Alan Fenna 9 . The ‘perfect storm’ of gun control: From policy inertia to world leader . 207 Philip Alpers and Zareh Ghazarian 10 . The Goods and Services Tax (GST): The public value of a contested reform . 235 Binh Tran-Nam 11 . Medicare: The making and consolidation of an Australian institution . 257 Anne-marie Boxall 12 . Avoiding the Global Financial Crisis in Australia: A policy success? . 279 Stephen Bell and Andrew Hindmoor 13 . Thinking outside the box: Tobacco plain packaging and the demise of smoking . 303 Becky Freeman Part II: Policy successes in New Zealand 14 . New Zealand’s universal no-fault accident compensation scheme: Embedding community responsibility . 329 Grant Duncan 15 . New Zealand’s economic turnaround: How public policy innovation catalysed economic growth . 357 Michael Mintrom and Madeline Thomas 16 . Nuclear-free New Zealand: Contingency, contestation and consensus in public policymaking . 379 David Capie 17 . Treaty of Waitangi settlements: Successful symbolic reparation . 399 Janine Hayward 18 . The Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994: How a nonbinding policy instrument proved highly powerful . 423 Derek Gill 19 . Early childhood education policy pathways: A learning story . 453 Sandy Farquhar and Andrew Gibbons 20 . KiwiSaver: A jewel in the crown of New Zealand’s retirement income framework? . 477 Kirsten MacDonald and Ross Guest 21 . Whānau Ora: An Indigenous policy success story . 505 Verna Smith, Charlotte Moore, Jacqueline Cumming and Amohia Boulton Acknowledgements This book swims against the currents of scepticism, negativism and disillusionment with politics and government that beset many nations today. It looks purposefully at the ‘bright side’ of public policy in Australia and New Zealand, and provides detailed case studies of instances in which governments by and large got it right and made positive differences to the lives and wellbeing of countless citizens, to the strength of their economies and, sometimes, to their country’s standing in the world. In selecting the public policies to study as success cases, we sought advice from two panels—one in Australia and one in New Zealand. These panels comprised senior academics with deep knowledge of public policy and practitioners with many years of experience in and around government at the highest levels. We wish to thank Guy Beatson, Jonathan Boston, Jennifer Curtin, John Daley, Michael Di Francesco, Grant Duncan, Meredith Edwards, Derek Gill, Arthur Grimes, Brian Head, Ken Henry, Girol Karacaoglu, Terry Moran, Mark Prebble, Graham Scott, Peter Shergold, Gary Sturgess, Anne Tiernan and Sally Washington for generously sharing their thoughts. As well as providing initial nominations of success cases, many also offered further comments on our shortlists of cases and helped in the identification of potential chapter authors. We could not have produced this book without the expertise, hard work and enthusiasm of our contributing authors. When we invited them to participate, many confessed to feeling a sense of joy to be given the opportunity to grapple with a story of positive accomplishment. We thank them for their exemplary work. This book is one product of the Successful Public Governance (SPG) research program at Utrecht University. The program has been made possible by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement vii SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC POLICY No. 694266). The ERC’s support is gratefully acknowledged. In addition to the present study, readers interested in case studies of policy successes are advised to consult this project’s ‘twin’—also available in open-access form online—containing 15 similar case studies of policy success from around the world (Mallory Compton and Paul ’t Hart, eds, Great Policy Successes, Oxford University Press, 2019). Other activities and outputs from this program can be found at www.successfulpublicgovernance.com. Joannah Luetjens and Paul ‘t Hart would like to thank their SPG team colleagues for their support and feedback throughout the making of this book. Professor Ken Smith, Dean and Chief Executive Officer of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), has been a staunch supporter of this book project. We gratefully acknowledge ANZSOG’s financial and logistical assistance for the authors’ workshop held in Melbourne in June 2018. As the premier provider of public sector executive education in Australia and New Zealand, ANZSOG will be a key ally in ensuring that the case studies in this book play their part as intended. For one, several of the case studies will be abridged and adapted into very concise teaching tools and will be published in ANZSOG’s John L. Alford’s case library (www.anzsog.edu.au/resource-library/case-library/ the-case-program)—aptly named in acknowledgement of our former colleague Professor John Alford, whose leadership on case teaching has inspired us. Special thanks go to Madeline Thomas, Research and Administrative Officer at ANZSOG, who cheerfully and effectively contributed at every stage to the logistics and editing activities associated with the project. We also wish to thank John Wanna and Sam Vincent, who provided extensive support in getting the book from manuscript to publication with ANU Press. Any omissions or errors of course remain entirely our responsibility. Utrecht/Melbourne November 2018 viii Contributors Philip Alpers, Adjunct Associate Meredith Edwards, Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney Professor, University of Canberra Stephen Bell, Professor of Sandy Farquhar, Senior lecturer, Political Economy, University University of Auckland of Queensland Alan Fenna, Professor of Politics, Emma Blomkamp, Honorary Curtin University Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Lisa Fitzgerald, Senior lecturer, University of Queensland Amohia Boulton, Research Centre Director, Whakauae Becky Freeman, Senior lecturer, Research Services University of Sydney Anne-marie Boxall, Adjunct Zareh Ghazarian, Senior lecturer, Associate Professor, University Monash University of Sydney Andrew Gibbons, Associate David Capie, Associate Professor Professor at the School of of International Relations, Education, Auckland University Victoria University of Wellington of Technology Jacqueline Cumming, Derek Gill, Research Associate at Professor of Health Policy and the Institute for Governance and Management, Victoria University Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington of Wellington, and Principal Economist, New Zealand Institute Grant Duncan, Associate of Economic Research Professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, R. Quentin Grafton, Professor Massey University of Economics, The Australian National University ix SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC POLICY Ross Guest, Professor of Charlotte Moore, Doctoral Economics, Griffith University candidate, University of Auckland Janine Hayward, Professor Allyson Mutch, Senior lecturer, of Political Science, University University of Queensland of Otago Verna Smith, Senior lecturer, Lisa Herron, Postgraduate Victoria University of Wellington student, University of Queensland Paul ‘t Hart, Professor of Timothy Higgins, Associate Public Administration, Utrecht Professor in Actuarial Studies, University The Australian National University Madeline Thomas, Research and Administrative Officer, the Andrew Hindmoor, Professor Australia and New Zealand School of Politics, University of Sheffield of Government James Horne, Visiting Fellow, Binh Tran-Nam, Professor The Australian National of Taxation, University of New University South Wales Jenny M. Lewis, Professor of Public Policy, University of Melbourne Joannah Luetjens, Doctoral candidate, Utrecht University