Do governments lead or lag in fighting crime?

We examine the Granger causal relationship between police strength and a variety of different types of crime for South Australia. We find that with the exception of assault and homicide in the long run, the crime rate and police strength are neutral.

Moving beyond 'rates, roads and rubbish' : how do local governments make choices about healthy public policy to prevent obesity?

While the causes of obesity are well known traditional education and treatment strategies do not appear to be making an impact. One solution as part of a broader complimentary set of strategies may be regulatory intervention at local government level to create environments for healthy nutrition and increased physical activity. Semi structured interviews were conducted with representatives of local government in Australia. Factors most likely to facilitate policy change were those supported by external funding, developed from an evidence base and sensitive to community and market forces. Barriers to change included a perceived or real lack of power to make change and the complexity of the legislative framework. The development of a systematic evidence base to provide clear feedback on the size and scope of the obesity epidemic at a local level, coupled with cost benefit analysis for any potential regulatory intervention, are crucial to developing a regulatory environment which creates the physical and social environment required to prevent obesity.

Encouraging governments to enhance the happiness of their nation : Step 1: understand subjective wellbeing

This article considers the issue of facilitating policies that enhance population happiness. An impediment to such action is the failure of most policy makers to understand that subjective wellbeing can be measured and understood within the framework of science. Additionally, they fail to realize that enhancing the subjective wellbeing of populations enhances not only the functioning of individuals but that of the population as a whole. A framework for understanding calls on the Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis and data from the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index. This Index has been used to monitor the subjective wellbeing of the Australian population over the 6-year period 2001–2006. The article begins by a description of the subjective wellbeing construct and the theory that it is homeostatically managed. The operation of homeostasis makes very determined predictions as to the kinds of relationships that should be found in association with various environmental challenges and resources. These predictions will be examined in the light of the data from our surveys and the benefits of population happiness will be discussed. Finally, consideration will be given as to and how such understanding may be conveyed to politicians, in order to assist the development of policies aimed at enhancing the level of happiness in society.

Finding and filling the gaps in the Australian governments' innovation and entrepreneurship support spectra

A national innovation system is concerned with the full process of converting new knowledge into commercially viable results. Governments are policy-active in trying to create productive national innovation systems. This paper reviews ways of thinking about entrepreneurship as the commercialisation component of Australia’s innovation system. The paper explores the impact and relevance of selected existing Australian Commonwealth, and to a lesser extent State government, programs for the commercialisation channels so identified, using four frameworks for the analysis: financial, management/start-up, innovation and entrepreneurial. The analysis indicates program initiatives covering the later development and commercialization phases, but serious gaps in the support available for the entrepreneurship phase involving the act of new entry. This gap is covered by research provider business development people and to a limited extent by incubator and State government initiatives. A critical issue has been and is access to smaller amounts of seed finance. The critical human component is the education of public servants and politicians about the nature and operation of entrepreneurship.

An exploratory cluster randomised controlled trial of knowledge translation strategies to support evidence-informed decision-making in local governments (The KT4LG study)

Background: Childhood overweight and obesity is the most prevalent and, arguably, politically complex child health problem internationally. Governments, communities and industry have important roles to play, and are increasingly expected to deliver an evidence-informed system-wide prevention program. However, efforts are impeded by a lack of organisational access to and use of research evidence. This study aims to identify feasible, acceptable and ideally, effective knowledge translation (KT) strategies to increase evidence-informed decision making in local governments, within the context of childhood obesity prevention as a national policy priority.
Methods/Design: This paper describes the methods for KT4LG, a cluster randomised controlled trial which is exploratory in nature, given the limited evidence base and methodological advances. KT4LG aims to examine a program of KT strategies to increase the use of research evidence in informing public health decisions in local governments. KT4LG will also assess the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention. The intervention program comprises a facilitated program of evidence awareness, access to tailored research evidence, critical appraisal skills development, networking and evidence summaries and will be compared to provision of evidence summaries alone in the control program. 28 local governments were randomised to intervention or control, using computer generated numbers, stratified by budget tertile (high, medium or low). Questionnaires will be used to measure impact, costs, and outcomes, and key informant interviews will be used to examine processes, feasibility, and experiences. Policy tracer studies will be included to examine impact of intervention on policies within relevant government policy documents.
Discussion: Knowledge translation intervention studies with a focus on public health and prevention are very few in number. Thus, this study will provide essential data on the experience of program implementation and evaluation of a system-integrated intervention program employed within the local government public health context. Standardised programs of system, organisational and individual KT strategies have not been described or rigorously evaluated. As such, the findings will make a significant contribution to understanding whether a facilitated program of KT strategies hold promise for facilitating evidence-informed public health decision making within complex multisectoral government organisations.

Government regulation to promote healthy food environments : a view from inside state governments

Food policy interventions are an important component of obesity-prevention strategies and can potentially drive positive changes in obesogenic environments. This study sought to identify regulatory interventions targeting the food environment, and barriers/facilitators to their implementation at the Australian state government level. In-depth interviews were conducted with senior representatives from state/territory governments, statutory authorities and non-government organizations (n = 45) to examine participants’ (i) suggestions for regulatory interventions for healthier food environments and (ii) support for pre-selected regulatory interventions derived from a literature review. Data were analysed using thematic and constant comparative analyses. Interventions commonly suggested by participants were regulating unhealthy food marketing; limiting the density of fast food outlets; pricing reforms to decrease fruit/vegetable prices and increase unhealthy food prices; and improved food labelling. The most commonly supported preselected interventions were related to food marketing and service. Primary production and retail sector interventions were least supported. The dominant themes were the need for whole-of-government and collaborative approaches; the influence of the food industry; conflicting policies/agenda; regulatory challenges; the need for evidence of effectiveness; and economic disincentives. While interventions such as public sector healthy food service policies were supported by participants, marketing restrictions and fiscal interventions face substantial barriers including a push for deregulation and private sector opposition.

Rethinking higher education : implications of the Australian Government’s expansion and equity agenda

In this paper I outline three broad challenges to higher education, implied in the Australian Government’s 20/40 targets and their attendant requirements for universities. In identifying these challenges I draw on publically available statistics on Australian schooling, vocational education and training (VET) and the higher education sector, as well as on recent research on outreach programs by universities in schools.

We need one district government to be set up to replace other district governments : the beginnings of Provincial Government in Papua New Guinea

Decentralisation, provincial government, and regional autonomy continue as influential factors in Papua New Guinea’s political economy.  The role played in creating PNG’s provincial government system by separatist movements in East New Britain, Bougainville and elsewhere is acknowledged.  However, as the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC) discovered during its program of consultations with the Papua New Guinean people from 1972 to 1974, there was a strong groundswell around the country for district-level governments.  This article investigates how the CPC stimulated discussion of this issue through its own activities, and how the people in their discussion groups responded to the CPC’s ‘Discussion Paper on Relations Between the Central Government and Other Levels of Government’.

Fiscal stringency and fiscal sustainability : panel evidence from the American state and local governments

Most state (and local) governments in the U.S. operate under formal fiscal rules which limit their ability to run budget deficits and resort to debt financing. A priori, one would expect to find evidence in favor of an intertemporally balanced budget, or fiscal sustainability, for these states, especially those characterized by a relatively high degree of fiscal stringency. We test this hypothesis for a panel of 47 state–local government units (1961–2006) using four budget balance definitions and several subsamples defined based on regional classifications, or presence of certain balanced budget requirements (BBRs). Our results, obtained from panel estimation techniques that allow for general forms of serial and cross-sectional dependence, suggest that a sufficient condition for “strong” sustainability is consistently satisfied for the full sample and all subsamples in relation to balances that include special funds and/or federal grants. However, we find evidence consistent with the “weak” version of sustainability for the full sample and some regional subsamples (particularly Far West dominated by California) in at least one of the two balances that exclude these items. Finally, the BBRs seem to matter only in relation to the sustainability of the more narrowly defined balances. We discuss the implications of these findings for the role of fiscal rules and federal grant policies.

The tax-spending nexus : evidence from a panel of US state–local governments

We re-examine the tax-spending nexus using a panel of 50 US state–local government units between 1963 and 1997. We find that, unlike tax revenues, expenditures adjust to revert back to a long-term equilibrium relationship. The evidence on the short-term dynamics is also consistent with the tax-and-spend hypothesis. One implication of this finding is that the size of the government at the state–local level is not determined by expenditure demand, but rather by resource supply. This is consistent with the fact that many US state and local governments operate under constitutional or legislative limitations that seek to constrain deficits.

Adoption of social media in Victorian local governments

The use of the Internet and social media tools by Australians has increased significantly over the last five years. Social media tools provide local governments with the opportunity to inform, serve and interact with their constituents on a level not previously possible. This paper uses a mixed method approach to firstly review current use of social media tools by Victorian local governments and secondly interview elected officials and administrators of four Victorian local councils about barriers to the adoption of social media tools. The results show that while 59 Victorian local governments (74%) are utilizing at least one social media tool, there are 20 councils (25%) that still do not utilize social media tools. The interviews indicate that the main barriers hindering social media implementations are: uncertainty, fear of risk, lack of knowledge and experience, lack of resources, lack of trust and, the culture of government. The main contribution of this study is a review of the current level of adoption of social media tools by Victorian local governments and identifies a number of barriers that prevent local government from fully utilizing the advantages of social media tools. Currently most Victorian local governments use social media to disseminate information.

Tough, tougher, toughest? A new government’s approach to sentencing laws in Victoria

When in opposition, Victoria¹s Liberal/National coalition made a number of commitments to be 'tough on crime'. After winning the 2010 state election, the Government arguably reformed sentencing laws more quickly and more substantially in its first year of office than any other area of policy, with several key initiatives delivered or in train.

The Victorian experience exemplifies fast and forceful responses to perceived risks to community safety by new Australian Governments. While some political leaders have decried the 'law and order auction' approach by political parties, it remains a real tool in political discourse.

Some of these initiatives appear inconsistent with fundamental sentencing principles, and are designed more to address public perceptions which are disconnected from the realities of criminality and incidence of offending. A more appropriate basis for criminal justice policy may require Government to prioritise addressing the causes of offending behavior, rather than penalising consequences.