Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
• Governments are compelled to act as a community protector or insurer of
last resort (that is, providing protection against risks that are too great for
the private sector to handle); for example, dealing with terrorism and national
security, conducting wars, dealing with natural disasters and epidemics and
combatting major crises affecting society, such as financial or economic crises.
• Turning to the public sector’s political purposes, governments respond to
electoral pressures and voter preferences (for more benefits, say, or for extended
services). Political parties channel voter preferences and campaign for office on
policy platforms, with winning parties expected to deliver on their agendas.
• The public sector fulfils important legal functions and provides administrative
services to ensure the rules and stability a functioning society needs are in
place. These include frameworks for the operation and enjoyment of liberty
and property, particularly law enforcement, courts and tribunals and bodies
protecting human rights. They also include regulatory bodies governing matters
such as safety, commerce and consumer protection.
In summary, comments on the role of the public sector that were made two
decades ago by the US organisational theorist Herbert Simon are still relevant
today: ‘At a point in history where cynicism about democracy and distrust of
government are rampant, we need to remind ourselves daily that government
performs a myriad of tasks that are vital to the health and future of our society.’ 2
Nevertheless, government decisions about what goods and services to supply,
howtodosoandhowmuchofparticulargoodsshouldbesuppliedarealways
contestable, even in the case of core public goods like defence, the courts, the
police, public health, education and so on. These are matters that the political
system determines, just as private markets determine how much of a private good
is produced and sold. Below we will explore some of the ways such issues have been
dealtwithinthepast.
Public sector governance
The questions of how much control governments can and should exert over the
public sector, to what ends and in what ways have shaped much of the public sector’s
history. The discussions in the following sections of the appropriate size of the
publicsectorandhowitsstructuresandfunctionshavechangedovertimereflect
the different views and values on which these questions about roles, purposes and
resources turn.
Two important sets of principles provide the norms and conventions that guide
andshapethestructuresandfunctionsofthepublicsector.Thefirstmaybebroadly
referred to as the Westminster tradition of public service. This tradition can be traced
2 Simon 1998, 2.
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