Reorienting a Nation: Consultants and Australian Public Policy

This text reports on the use of consultants by Hawke Labour Governments in the mid-to-late 1980s to review public policy in the files of social welfare, public housing, immigration, public health and relations with Australia's North East Asian neighbours. The research is based on the hypothesis that, in a context of significant social and economic change, governments are especially likely to engage sympathetic consultants to review public policy. They do so because consultants provide an additional layer of protection form attack on proposed policies by political adversaries for ministers and governments who want to alter policy direction radically and to do so over a longer and more thorough period of data gathering and reflection than is normally possible in the political world. Consultants are also successful in getting their recommendations accepted by government because they are able to succesfully manage the process of decision-making surrounding policy reviews. Further, the widely acknowledged expertise of the consultants and their independent status from government legitimates the review process and assists the establishments of a new agenda within a particular policy field. The use of consultants in policy-making in this way allows politicians and bureaucrats to maintain control over the process, while not being seen as the central actors.