Labor's Unknown Experiment

The Department of Urban and Regional Development's (DURD's) Moreton Regional Coordination Exercise was a bold experiment. It aimed to coordinate, at a regional level, the activities of all levels of government, an objective close to DURD's heart. The proposal emerged from DURD's struggles with other commonwealth departments, conflicts with the Queensland government over administrative arrangements for the Area Improvement Program and the Australian Assistance Plan, and representations from the Lord Mayor of Brisbane concerning regional arrangements. In the course of setting the exercise up, DURD faced many difficulties, including departmental opposition on the interdepartmental committees and the scepticism of officials at the regional level. In implementing the idea of a regional budget there were serious shortcomings in available information and major difficulties in overcoming the inertia of existing departmental budgetary routines and priorities. The Regional Team of officials produced a report that was redolent of general support for “better coordination”, but the specific proposals and their effectiveness were very limited. DURD's coordinating ambitions were thwarted, despite apparent Cabinet support and oversight by a special Cabinet committee. In fact, Cabinet as an institution was too weak and its membership too fragmented to provide the necessary power to overcome bureaucratic conservatism

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