Memorandum by Professor Patrick Weller,
Dr Anne Tiernan and Ms Jennifer Menzies, School of Politics and
Public Policy, Griffith University
The Select Committee on the Constitution's call
for evidence on the Cabinet Office and the Centre of Government
identifies a broad scope of inquiry. This submission focuses on
the core functions and institutional capacity of a Prime Minister's
Department and seeks to demonstrate the viability of such a model
in the Australian context.
Since July 1911, the Australian Prime Minister
has been served by a Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
(PMC). The role and functions undertaken by the Department have
changed over the decades but the need for and the legitimacy of
the central capacity remains unchallenged. This submission looks
at PMC as an alternative model for organising the centre of government
and outlines what has been learnt from the knowledge and experience
of a long term Prime Minister's Department in Australia. We hope
to offer some points for consideration to the Constitution Committee.
The centre of government is not static and many
jurisdictions are experimenting with what skills and functions
are needed at the centre. The hallmark of the Westminster system
of Parliamentary democracy is its capacity to evolve. As the functions
of government have increased in response to changing social, political
and economic circumstances, new structures and capacities are
developed to meet new pressures. Different governments follow
different lines of development, even when faced with similar pressures.
In this complex, globalised environment, the need for new roles
and structures at the centre continues to evolve.
One way of conceptualising how to support the
Prime Minister is to distinguish between the Prime Minister's
prerogatives and the Prime Minister's priorities.[26]
The prerogatives consist of the range of activities the Prime
Minister must undertake—whether they are linked to his or
her role as Chair of Cabinet, as leader of the party, in the Parliament
or ceremonial duties. The priorities refer to the activity he
or she chooses to undertake and on which they wish to confer prolonged
prime ministerial attention. The priorities could include such
activity as overseeing the implementation of election commitments,
giving priority to personal policy interests, emerging external
threats or domestic challenges. Conceptualising the two spheres
of prime ministerial activity can provide the basis to develop
structures that support both roles of the Prime Minister.
In the Australian context, the model has evolved
a set, relatively stable and ongoing structure to support the
activities which form the Prime Minister's prerogatives. These
functions fall under the Governance Division of the Department
and include the Cabinet Secretariat, Parliament and Government
Section, Awards and Corporate Services. Other Divisions are more
flexible and subject to reorganisation as priorities change. At
the moment they comprise the Groups of Domestic Policy, Strategic
Policy and Implementation, National Security and International
Policy and the recently added role of Coordinator-General,[27]
The model of a set structure for prerogatives and a flexible structure
for priorities means, as the preoccupations of the Prime Minister
changes, either through external threats or domestic challenges,
the centre has the capacity to change structure and personnel
to meet those challenges.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet
in Australia is now nearly a century old and there are a number
of insights which can be drawn from our knowledge and experience
of the Australian model. The Department of the Prime Minister
and Cabinet offers the centre of government a number of strengths.
They include:
1. Historical memory and continuity. The
stable centre of the Department, the Governance Division, offers
expertise in the processes of Parliamentary government and in
the conventions, precedent, technicalities and processes necessary
for the continuity of government. It is responsible for the ordered
transition from one administration to the next and for the ceremonial
elements of the position of Prime Minister. Transitions of government
in Australia have a tradition of being smooth and successful,
in significant part because of the continuity and institutional
memory within PMC. It provides guidance and advice to Ministers,
ministerial staff and senior officials on complex matters including
machinery of government changes. These functions are especially
important given the longevity of incumbent governments,[28]
staff turnover within the Australian Public Service (APS) and
a rapidly ageing public sector workforce. Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd noted in early 2008 that two-thirds of the current APS workforce
was not employed in the service when the Howard government was
elected in 1996.[29]
Thus for more than 60 per cent of APS employees, 2007 was their
first transition of government.
2. Incubation role. The role of the Commonwealth
government has expanded over the years as new issues emerge that
demand government attention PMC has played the role of a policy
incubator for many of these new functions. For example, arts policy,
indigenous affairs and education all started as units in PMC before
they were hived off into permanent structures.
3. Short term priorities. PMC is frequently
the home of taskforces and administrative entities focussed on
the management of issues of immediate concern (particularly those
that have cross-government or whole of government implications)
PMC has a greater capacity than line agencies to be organisationally
neutral and to play the role of arbiter in driving forward a complex
agenda.
4. Flexibility and responsiveness. The
Department provides a continuing and flexible capacity to support
the Prime Minister's interests and to respond quickly as the weight
of those interests changes. For example, the role of Coordinator-General
was added to the Department in 2009 this year to co-ordinate and
drive the infrastructure spending which the Federal government
has directly allocated to state governments to counteract the
global financial crisis.
5. Cabinet Services and Implementation and Intelligence
and Security. Australia's Cabinet meets regularly in Canberra
and the major capital cities, and in the community.[30]
PMC supports Cabinet and a developing web of Cabinet committees
that focus on specific issues, including the important National
Security Committee of Cabinet (NSCC).[31]
The decisions of all committees except NSCC are endorsed by the
full Cabinet. Following a recent review of national security arrangements,
the Prime Minister has appointed a National Security Adviser within
PMC. In November 2007, the Prime Minister also appointed a senior
Cabinet Minister, Senator John Faulkner, as Cabinet Secretary.
His responsibilities include the efficiency of Cabinet routines
and decision-making processes and oversighting implementation
of Cabinet decisions—a process managed within PMC by the
Cabinet Implementation Unit.
6. Training ground for senior bureaucrats. PMC
has traditionally been the training ground for future Departmental
Secretaries. Many senior officials have undertaken a position
in the Department, usually at Deputy Secretary level, to round
off their knowledge about the centre of government before being
appointed to Secretary positions.
One of the main criticisms levelled at the idea
of establishing a Prime Minister's Department in the United Kingdom
is the claim that such an entity would cut across and undermine
the collective conventions of the Westminster system of government,[32]
Australia, too, is a system of collective and party government
and in common with other Westminster-style systems shared the
debate about the perceived predominance of the Prime Minister.
However, this debate has not led to the veracity of the model
of' support for the Australian Prime Minister through a Department
being called into question as it has in relation to the British
Prime Minister.
In Australia, such support for the Prime Minister
has been bi-partisan. PMC has been able to easily adapt to new
leaders and their leadership style, new demands and to the pulling
in and hiving off of functions. The Department is considered to
house the cream of the Australian Public Service and is noted
for its professionalism and the calibre of officers working there.
In this increasingly complex and networked society, PMC is a key
and important source of advice to the Prime Minister but not the
only source. The longevity of the model clearly indicates that
a Prime Minister's Department is not incompatible with collective
responsibility and Cabinet government. 33
15 May 2009
33 Weller, Patrick 1983 Do Prime Minister's Departments
Really Create Problems? Public Administration, Vol 61, Spring,
pp 78.
26 Weller, Patrick 1983 Do Prime Minister's Departments
Really Create Problems? Public Administration, Vol 61, Spring,
pp 62. Back
27
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Organisation Chart-April
2009 www dpmc gov.au Back
28
Transitions of government occur only occasionally in Australia
There have been only six changes of Commonwealth government since
1945. Back
29
Rudd, K 2008, The economy, inflation and the challenge of housing
affordability. Address to Business Leaders Forum, Brisbane, 3
March. Back
30
Community Cabinet meetings were established by the Rudd government
in 2007. Back
31
For an overview of the operations of NSCC, see Iiernan, A, 2007
The learner: John Howard's system of national security advice.
Australian Journal ofInternational Affairs, Vol 61 (4), pp. 489-505). Back
32
Jones, G 1983 Prime Minister's Departments Really Create Problems:
a rejoinder to Pat Weller in Public Administration Vol 61, Spring,
pp 79-84. Blick, A and Jones, G 2007 The Department of the Prime
Minister"-should it continue? in History and Policy Paper,
June, www.historyandpolicv.org/papers/ Back
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