Learning to Be a Minister: Heroic Expectations, Practical Realities

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Melbourne Univ. Publishing, 2010 - Political Science - 351 pages

Drawing on extensive interviews with current and former ministers, ministerial staffers, and senior officials, this in-depth examination offers insight into the Australian political and democratic processes. Exploring the lives of AustraliaÍs federal ministers at work, this revealing account investigates how a new ministry learns and adapts to the responsibilities of governing as well as the means by which ministers learn to juggle time and other resources in their simultaneous, and sometimes conflicting, roles as members of Parliament and Cabinet, as local constituency representatives, and as media spokespersons.

 

Contents

The Job of a Minister
1
Pathways to the Ministry
23
Moving into Government
53
Ministers and Departments
97
How Departmental Secretaries See Ministers
125
Ministers in Cabinet
160
Ministers Prime Ministers and Central Direction
189
Ministers in Parliament
210
Ministers and their Private Offices
253
Can Ministers Cope?
296
When the Music Stops
320
Bibliography
331
Index
338
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

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Anne Tiernan is a senior lecturer in the school of politics and public policy at Griffith University in Australia and the author of Power Without Responsibility: Ministerial Staffers in Australian Governments from Whitlam to HowardPatrick Weller is the Premier of Queensland Chair of Public Management and the director of the Center for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University.

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