'Border Crossings: the employment of public servants in ministers' offices in Australia'

Abstract

The practice of public servants working as political advisers in ministers’ offices is not uncommon around the world, but it is relatively rare within Westminster countries. Amongst the nations with Westminster style political institutions, only Australia and Canada have rules permitting their public servants to take leave and work as political staff to ministers, and then return to the impartial public service. This practice is seen as a vital, but also risky, part of the political-administrative relationship in these countries (Maley 2017). In countries where the public service is fundamentally defined by its impartiality, the practice raises questions about how public servants might hold and relinquish political identities and about whether it creates patterns of politicisation and patronage in the public service. While these movements occur in hidden and informal ways in Australia, they have recently come under scrutiny as emblematic of problems of disconnect and politicisation within the political-administrative relationship in Australia. Developing the practice in new ways has been suggested as a possible solution to the current bureaucratic malaise.