Caretaker Conventions in Australasia Minding the Shop for Government Caretaker Conventions in Australasia Minding the Shop for Government Anne Tiernan and Jennifer Menzies Centre for Governance and Public Policy Griffith University Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/caretaker_citation.html National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Tiernan, Anne, 1968- . Caretaker conventions in Australasia : minding the shop for government. Bibliography. ISBN 9781921313493 (pbk.). ISBN 9781921313509 (web). 1. Public administration - Australia - Decision making. 2. Public administration - New Zealand - Decision making. 3. Public administration - Australia. 4. Public administration - New Zealand. 5. Elections - Australia. 6. Elections - New Zealand. 7. Australia - Politics and government - 2001-. 8. New Zealand - Politics and government - 21st century. I. Menzies, Jennifer. II. Title. (Series : ANZSOG series). 328.9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design by John Butcher. Printed by University Printing Services, ANU Funding for this monograph series has been provided by the Australia and New Zealand School of Government Research Program. This edition © 2007 ANU E Press John Wanna, Series Editor Professor John Wanna is the Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administration at the Research School of Social Sciences at The Australian National University. He is the director of research for the Australian and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). He is also a joint appointment with the Department of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University and a principal researcher with two research centres: the Governance and Public Policy Research Centre and the nationally- funded Key Centre in Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith University. Professor Wanna has produced around 17 books including two national text books on policy and public management. He has produced a number of research-based studies on budgeting and financial management including: Budgetary Management and Control (1990); Managing Public Expenditure (2000), From Accounting to Accountability (2001) and, most recently, Controlling Public Expenditure (2003). He has just completed a study of state level leadership covering all the state and territory leaders — entitled Yes Premier: Labor leadership in Australia’s states and territories — and has edited a book on Westminster Legacies in Asia and the Pacific —Westminster Legacies: Democracy and responsible government in Asia and the Pacific. He was a chief investigator in a major Australian Research Council funded study of the Future of Governance in Australia (1999-2001) involving Griffith and the ANU. His research interests include Australian and comparative politics, public expenditure and budgeting, and government-business relations. He also writes on Australian politics in newspapers such as The Australian, Courier-Mail and The Canberra Times and has been a regular state political commentator on ABC radio and TV. Table of Contents Author Proles ix Acknowledgements xi Foreword xiii List of abbreviations and acronyms xv Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. What are conventions? 7 Chapter 3. Origins of caretaker conventions 13 Chapter 4. When do the conventions apply? 25 Chapter 5. Caretaker conventions: an overview of Australian jurisdictions 33 Chapter 6. Caretaker conventions: an overview of New Zealand and local government arrangements 53 Chapter 7. Forces inuencing the observance of caretaker conventions 59 Chapter 8. A changing practice? 63 Chapter 9. Caretaker conventions and the future of responsible government 71 Glossary 75 References 77 Appendix A. Dierent approaches – what the jurisdictional guidances say 83 vii Author Profiles Dr Anne Tiernan is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University, and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) Research Program. She has worked in policy roles in both the Commonwealth and Queensland public sectors, and as a policy and research consultant. Dr Tiernan's research interests include: executive advisory arrangements Ð particularly ministerial staffing arrangements and relations between ministerial offices and the public service, policy influence and public policy agenda-setting. Her book, Power Without Responsibility: Ministerial Staffers in Australian Governments from Whitlam to Howard published recently by UNSW Press, examines the implications of the growth of ministerial staffing arrangements, especially its impact on the quality of information and advice to decision-makers. Dr Tiernan is currently working on a major ARC-funded research project investigating the policy advisory capacity of the Australian Public Service (APS) and its ability to support decision-makers through its policy advising functions. Jennifer Menzies is a Director with the consultancy Policy Futures. A former senior executive and Cabinet Secretary within the Queensland Department of the Premier and Cabinet, she was responsible for the development of the government's priorities and the implementation of the government's agenda in all departments. Menzies has had extensive experience in policy development at the State and Commonwealth levels including the latest iteration of the Smart State Policy, the Capital City Policy and the E-Democracy Policy Framework. She is an M.Phil candidate in the School of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University. Her topic is contemporary political leadership. ix Acknowledgements For an issue that so engages the attention of politicians and public servants for an intense period of about a month every few years, surprisingly little has been published on the topic of caretaker conventions. This monograph draws together research Ð and the guidance documents developed by public service central agencies Ð to address matters of practical concern in managing the business of government during an election campaign. As we show in this monograph, conventions are dynamic. They evolve through experience and political practice. This monograph addresses the theoretical underpinnings of the caretaker principles, traces their progressive institutionalisation in recent decades and examines some contemporary challenges for their interpretation and observance. It is important to note, however, that while our treatment of the guidance documents is currently accurate, they are `live' documents that will adapt and change as experience and events dictate. It will, therefore, be necessary for practitioners and others with an interest in the trajectory of the caretaker conventions to monitor such changes and to consider them in the context of our arguments as laid out here. Our research and understanding of the issues canvassed in this monograph has been assisted by the many Commonwealth, State and Territory officials who generously spoke to us about their experience of the caretaker conventions and reviewed sections of the manuscript. The 2006 Queensland election provided an opportunity to test some of our ideas and arguments through workshops organised by the Institute for Public Administration Australia (IPAA) Queensland Division. Thanks to IPAA and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. We are grateful to Professor John Wanna of the ANZSOG research program, who engaged us to undertake this research with a practitioner readership in mind and helped conceptualise and shape the manuscript. Special thanks to John Nethercote and Jonathan Boston for helpful comments on the draft and to John Butcher for his editing and deft management of the production process. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University for allowing us to complete this work alongside other research commitments. Anne Tiernan and Jennifer Menzies September 2007 xi Foreword Andrew Podger National President Institute of Public Administration Australia This monograph is the first of a planned series over the next few years as a joint venture between IPAA and ANZSOG. ANZSOG is a unique collaboration amongst Australasian governments and higher education institutions to develop emerging leaders in the public sector and to support research on contemporary public policy and management issues. IPAA is the national association of those whose profession is public administration, promoting high standards and continuous professional development and disseminating research and practitioner experience through its journals and its seminars and conferences. The two organisations are natural partners. Participants in ANZSOG programs are encouraged to be members and supporters of IPAA. Both are keen to promote research and to share lessons from practical experience. IPAA is particularly keen to sponsor work that provides guidance on professional standards in public administration. IPAA's Queensland Division has been taking the lead in developing some initial documents canvassing the standards that might apply today in such fields as values-based management and whistleblower arrangements. This monograph by Anne Tiernan and Jennifer Menzies represents a substantial review of the rules and