John Wanna
Biographic Data
| ID | 689193 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Wanna |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Wanna |
| SIGNATURE | WANNA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9342-3138 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 88 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 160 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 83 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2025
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2024
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2023
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2024
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2022
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2023
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2021
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2022
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2021
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2020
The Longman by-election of 2018
This article sets out to explain how the relatively unremarkable 2018 by-election result in which a sitting Labor candidate held her seat with a mediocre swing towards her resulted in the panicked removal of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull from office and his immediate resignation from the parliament. The combined Queensland state Coalition party, the Liberal National Party, convinced itself that it could win the marginal outer-metropolitan seat …
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2020
Political ChroniclesCommonwealth of Australia July to December 2019
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2019
Commonwealth of Australia
Just when political pundits thought federal parliament could not become even wackier than it had been in recent times, the inhabitants of Capital Hill continued to prove everyone wrong. Even serious journalists began referring to the national legislature metaphorically as the “monkey house” to encapsulate the farcical behaviour they were obliged to report. With Tony Abbott being pre‐emptively ousted from the prime ministership by Malcolm Turnbull…
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2017
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2018
After a relatively long and benign honeymoon since winning office in May 2022, the Albanese government gave all the impressions it had adopted a “softly-softly” pragmatic approach to governing by 2023, articulated by the Prime Minister at a special National Press Club address earlier in the year. It was purposefully eschewing much needed structural reform to instead pursue a range of narrow ideological trade union concerns in industrial relations…
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2017
Shambolic Instability becomes the New Norm in the Forty-fifth Parliament. The sequence of political crises and exasperating setbacks afflicting the Turnbull government since it was narrowly returned in July 2016 looked set to continue into 2017. The ministerial resignation of Health Minister Sussan Ley (who paradoxically added an extra “s” into her name because a numerologist said it would make her lucky) triggered a ministerial reshuffle in earl…
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2016
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2016
Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2015
As the year 2023 unfolded the Albanese government initially seemed buoyed after the by-election win in the Victorian seat of Aston, improving their majority to five seats in the lower house, and the seeming inability of the Coalition parties under opposition leader Peter Dutton to become a formidable opponent or offer alternative policy agendas. The May Budget, with some modest cost of living relief of $14.6 billion to welfare recipients, had lar…
The Global Financial Crisis and its Budget Impacts in OECD Nations
The global financial crisis of 2007–09 constituted the biggest shock to the economies of the OECD nations since the Second World War and caused most of their governments to move into intense crisis mode. They made significant adjustments to their fiscal policy regimes, including massive interventions to stabilize markets and economies. But how they reacted to the crisis, and what measures they took to deal with it, still underpin their economic a…
Abbott's Gambit
This book provides a truly comprehensive analysis of the 2013 federal election in Australia, which brought the conservative Abbott government to power, consigned the fractious Labor Party to the Opposition benches and ended the ‘hung parliament’ experiment of 2010–13 in which the Greens and three independents lent their support to form a minority Labor government. It charts
Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2015
The year began with the spectre of disunity hanging over the Morrison Coalition government, now reduced to a minority government for the last six months of its parliamentary term. Despite the PM referring to his side of politics as a “Muppet show”, as the months ticked by the government gradually got down to the business of governing, focusing on economic and budgetary management, while attempting to defuse as many political issues as it could pr…
Political Chronicles Commonwealth of Australia July to December 2014
The period saw some economic optimism with the release of the thirty-year\nQueensland Plan and a burgeoning LNG industry, but also much pessimism amid\ngrowing unemployment and a shift in the Newman government’s plans for asset\nprivatisation. After suffering a massive anti-government swing at the Stafford byelection\nearly in the period, the Liberal-National Party faced more public opinion\nchallenges as allegations of cronyism and conflicts of …
The Limits to Public Value, or Rescuing Responsible Government from the Platonic Guardians
In various guises, public value has become extraordinarily popular in recent years. We challenge the relevance and usefulness of the approach in Westminster systems with their dominant hierarchies of control, strong roles for ministers, and tight authorising regimes underpinned by disciplined two‐party systems. We start by spelling out the core assumptions behind the public value approach. We identify two key confusions; about public value as the…
Bringing the Politics Back In
We challenge the usefulness of the ‘public value’ approach in Westminster systems with their dominant hierarchies of control, strong roles for ministers, and tight authorizing regimes underpinned by disciplined two‐party systems. We identify two key confusions: about public value as theory, and in defining who are ‘public managers’. We identify five linked core assumptions in public value: the benign view of large‐scale organizations; the primacy…
Reinventing Westminster
The rise of the new public management in the 1980s led to recurring challenges to the administrative traditions of the public service in Australia, Canada and the UK. This article analyses how the heads of the public service articulate the traditions of ‘constitutional bureaucracy’ found in Westminster systems of parliamentary government and selectively draws on past understandings to understand present-day changes. We describe traditions under c…
Collaborative Governance
Collaboration means joint working or working in conjunction with others. It implies actors-individuals, groups or organisations-cooperating in some endeavour. The participants are 'co-labouring' with others on terms and conditions that, as we know, can vary enormously. The word 'collaboration' originally came into use in the nineteenth century as industrialisation developed, more complex organisations emerged and the division of labour and tasks …
Traditions of Australian governance
Australia's traditions of governance tend to be pragmatic and to blend different ideologies. Its traditions are less dependent on political party ideologies, and more on competing conceptions of the significant problems and the way that they should be addressed. In this article we identify five principal traditions, namely: settler–state developmentalism; civilizing capitalism; the development of a social–liberal constitutional tradition; traditi…
Stairways to Heaven
‘There's a laddie who's sure all that glitters is gold and he's buying a stairway to heaven’ (with apologies to Led Zeppelin). We welcome the opportunity to engage with John Alford's defence of the public value approach and its application to Australia. We do not repeat our initial arguments at any length. We prefer readers to look at the full version (Rhodes and Wanna 2007). We focus on key disagreements and identify ways forward.1 That said, it…
Departmental Secretaries
This report examines the conditions of appointment and termination of departmental secretaries in the APS and considers the impact of these conditions on: the secretaries themselves; the potential pool from which secretaries are drawn; and the likely continuing influence on the way in which the APS operates. The report is based on reviews of the literature on the appointments of departmental secretaries and of the legislative changes made in the …
With the Benefit of Hindsight
Secretaries of government departments in Australia are the bureaucratic leaders of their generation. They are ambitious, highly-talented executives who have risen to the very pinnacle of their chosen vocation - public service to the Australian nation - usually after having spent most, if not all, of their professional careers dedicated to the public service. They serve
The Irrepressible Rod Rhodes
Rod Rhodes spent 25 years as the Editor of Public Administration before he retired from that role at the end of 2010. These essays in his honour are intended to celebrate the achievement of those 25 years and reflect on his contribution to the worlds of public administration and political science. Rod has now consolidated the standing of the journal as one of the most significant locations for work on public administration. At the same time, over…
From afterthought to afterburner
In late 2003 the Australian government under Prime Minister Howard introduced a Cabinet Implementation Unit, but rejected the approach taken with the UK's Prime Minister's Delivery Unit. This paper traces the initial aspirations and decision pathways of key public executives at the centre of government. The first two parts sketch the background and genesis of the CIU. The third examines in detail the internal decision making and politics that sha…
Australia's Future as a ‘Westminster Democracy’ – threats to combat, stark choices to make
Westminster is a relatively small precinct of central London that houses some of the principal institutions of British central government. The term ‘Westminster’ is also a colloquial descriptor signifying a system of parliamentary government that has achieved some recognition in comparative government and is used as a shorthand by practitioners and academics to label a certain set of jurisdictions (Ball and Peters 2005; Rhodes, Wanna and Weller 2…
A Most Peculiar Implosion—the Australian Federal Election September 2013
This article explores the bizarre circumstances that produced a change of government in Australia at the September 2013 federal election. The Labor government led sequentially by Kevin Rudd, then by Julia Gillard (Australia's first female prime minister), and again briefly by Rudd, was consigned back into opposition. After a turbulent six years in office marked by the Global Financial Crisis (2008), successive policy scandals and almost four year…
Putting the Citizens at the Centre
The China-Australia Public Administration Dialogue is a new collaboration between scholars and practitioners from across greater China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and Australia, aimed at deepening understanding of contemporary developments and issues in public policy and management. Built around a core group of participants, the Dialogue is hosting a series of workshops on particular themes with relevant experts presenting and debating paper…
Prospects for Regeneration in Government - What we Talk about is More Important than What we Do or How we Do it
Crashing through with Accrual-Output Price Budgeting in Australia
In 1999 Australia embarked on an accrual budgetary methodology in conjunction with an ambitious outcomesoutputs framework. The changes were entirely driven by central budgetary agencies who wanted to see the total costs (or prices) of outputs reflected in budgetary documentation and evidence of value for money in declared results. The government also decided to implement the changes within 1 year, and by adopting a crash-through mentality the cen…
Innovative state strategies in the Antipodes
Australia and New Zealand began engaging with the globalised economic environment from the 1960s through a gradual process of adaptation. Both countries began dismantling the 'protective state', spawning new governance practices and some new institutions. While the core political institutions of Westminster governance remained largely unchanged, they have proved particularly resilient and adaptive to change. The most pronounced impact of globalis…
Trajectories of public administration and administrative history in Australia
Anyone who has taught courses or conducted research under the rubric of ‘public administration’ must have been troubled more or less frequently by two characteristics of his ‘field’- its nebulous scope and its lack of any distinctive technique. He must have felt himself a Jack of all trades as he pottered amateurishly about, now on the fringes of administrative law, now at the margins of accounting and budgeting, and then at the edges of industri…
Commentary
Trust, Distrust and Public Sector Reform
(1992). Trust, Distrust and Public Sector Reform: Labor's Managerialism in Queensland. Policy, Organisation and Society: Vol. 5, Special Trust Issue, pp. 74-82
Treasury and Economic Policy - Beyond the Dismal Science
‘Treasury advises and assists the Treasurer, and through him the Government, in the discharge of his and its responsibilities in relation to economic, fiscal and monetary matters. The Department's main responsibilities lie in the field of general economic management’, Treasury, Annual Report 1983. ‘The Treasury's mission is to improve the wellbeing of the Australian people by providing sound and timely advice to the Government, based on objective…
Independence and Responsiveness – Re‐tying the Gordian Knot
Striking the Balance: Public Service Independence and Responsiveness ‐ an Institute of Public Administration Australia roundtable in conjunction with the Australia and New Zealand School of Government and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, 14 March 2008. The roundtable consisted of around 60 participants consisting of former federal and state/territory ministers, ministerial advisers, current and former public servants, media and think …
Insisting on Traditional Ministerial Responsibility and the Constitutional Independence of the Public Service
Does the Teaching of Public Administration Have a Future
A Paradigm of Consent
Antipodean trade-unionists try to be practical, that is why they set themselves limited tasks and aspirations. They do not worry in the least about debating whether society is evolving towards collectivism or com munism, nor try to influence the direction of social change . . . (A. M?tin, Socialism Without Doctrine, 1901) M?tin's critique of the Australian 'workers' paradise' depicted South Australia as an agrarian backwater in which the labour m…
Defence Not Defiance. The Development of Organised Labour in South Australia
A Paradigm of Consent
Antipodean trade-unionists try to be practical, that is why they set themselves limited tasks and aspirations. They do not worry in the least about debating whether society is evolving towards collectivism or com munism, nor try to influence the direction of social change . . . (A. M?tin, Socialism Without Doctrine, 1901) M?tin's critique of the Australian 'workers' paradise' depicted South Australia as an agrarian backwater in which the labour m…
Industrialisation in South Australia
A long revolution
Peter Coaldrake, Working the System: Government in Queensland. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1989, pp.l85.$12.95 (paper) Phil Dickie, The Road to Fitzgerald: Revelations of Corruption Spanning Four Decades, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988. pp.293. $9.95 (paper); second edition, The Road to Fitzgerald ana Beyond, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1989, pp.337. $12.95 (paper) Evan Whitton, The Hillbilly Dictator: …
The Hawke-Keating Leadership Challenge June 1991
(1991). The Hawke-Keating Leadership Challenge June 1991. Policy, Organisation and Society: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 85-87
Trust, Distrust and Public Sector Reform
(1992). Trust, Distrust and Public Sector Reform: Labor's Managerialism in Queensland. Policy, Organisation and Society: Vol. 5, Special Trust Issue, pp. 74-82
Trials in Power
How do we Manage our Cities? Problems and Prospects for Urban Policy in the 1990s
How policy processes relate to the city is the subject of this paper. We argue that the way in which cities are perceived by policy makers does make a difference to the policy approach adopted in planning for cities. In conventional ‘relativist’ approaches the nature of the city itself is not a prime consideration in policy formation or implementation but merely a complex site where diverse policies intersect. In this model policy design is relat…
British Public Management
Does the Teaching of Public Administration Have a Future
Departmental Secretaries
This report examines the conditions of appointment and termination of departmental secretaries in the APS and considers the impact of these conditions on: the secretaries themselves; the potential pool from which secretaries are drawn; and the likely continuing influence on the way in which the APS operates. The report is based on reviews of the literature on the appointments of departmental secretaries and of the legislative changes made in the …
Queensland
Queensland
An Impeditive Administrative Culture? The Legacy of Australia's First Auditor‐General on the Australian Audit Office
This historical study provides an account of the Australian Audit Office from its formation in 1901 until the end of the term of Australia's first Auditor‐General in 1925. The Audit Office was created to assist the Commonwealth Government in discharging and reporting on its accountability for the economical use of resources. The philosophy upon which the Audit Office was created was one based on small government where a minimalist role for the au…
Traditions of Australian governance
Australia's traditions of governance tend to be pragmatic and to blend different ideologies. Its traditions are less dependent on political party ideologies, and more on competing conceptions of the significant problems and the way that they should be addressed. In this article we identify five principal traditions, namely: settler–state developmentalism; civilizing capitalism; the development of a social–liberal constitutional tradition; traditi…
Commentary
Queensland
Report on the National Conference of the Institute of Public Administration of Australia, Brisbane, 27–28 November 2003. Vision 2020
The 2004 federal election — party platforms toward the public service
The public service emerged as an election issue some months before John Howard called the election, but was promptly drowned in the mêlée of marginal seat vote‐bidding of the campaign proper. While this report will appear after the electoral outcome is known, it is important to record the policies of the various political party on the public service and to a degree the wider public sector. This includes what was said and what was not. Both main p…
Crashing through with Accrual-Output Price Budgeting in Australia
In 1999 Australia embarked on an accrual budgetary methodology in conjunction with an ambitious outcomesoutputs framework. The changes were entirely driven by central budgetary agencies who wanted to see the total costs (or prices) of outputs reflected in budgetary documentation and evidence of value for money in declared results. The government also decided to implement the changes within 1 year, and by adopting a crash-through mentality the cen…
Commonwealth of Australia. July to December 2004
Trajectories of public administration and administrative history in Australia
Anyone who has taught courses or conducted research under the rubric of ‘public administration’ must have been troubled more or less frequently by two characteristics of his ‘field’- its nebulous scope and its lack of any distinctive technique. He must have felt himself a Jack of all trades as he pottered amateurishly about, now on the fringes of administrative law, now at the margins of accounting and budgeting, and then at the edges of industri…
Mapping Research Agendas with Government
Prospects for Regeneration in Government - What we Talk about is More Important than What we Do or How we Do it
The Australian federal election 2004
Political science (66 works) · Law (55 works) · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism (43 works) · Politics (43 works) · History (33 works) · Public Administration (33 works) · Sociology (32 works) · Law (24 works) · Public Administration (23 works) · Computer Science (19 works)