Hiring and Firing Public Managers: Returning Authority to Australian Politicians

The post World War Two period in Australia saw a significant growth in government expenditure, a rapid increase in the bureaucracy and an expansion of the welfare state. These changes placed great pressures on Commonwealth government ministers and their ability to control senior public servants. This paper explores the threat these changes posed for the convention of ministerial responsibility and the strategic actions taken by politicians to regain control. It argues that despite budgetary reform, the introduction of commercialisation, the imposition of statutory review bodies and the recruitment of specialist advisers, politicians did not effectively reinstate ministerial responsibility until the late 1980s, when they began to assume the right to hire and fire public servants.