2: Australia, The OECD and the Post-NPM World

The last two decades have seen substantial reform to the public sector in Australia. Many, if not all of these reforms fall within the loose NPM paradigm as described by a variety of authors (for detailed discussions of the paradigm and its significance see for example Hood, 1991, 1996; Hood & Dunleavey, 1994; Lynn, 1996), in the sense that they have displayed one or more of the following characteristics:

The primary aim of this chapter is to look into the future, to examine what might be described as a post-NPM vision of the future of Australian government, a vision of a ‘regulatory’ state to which the federal government has committed itself. The vision is portrayed in some detail in a highly significant OECD report, described below (1997). The chapter is divided into three major sections and a conclusion. The first provides background information regarding the OECD’s work in regard to regulatory reform. The second examines, in a critical fashion, the vision of the ‘new regulatory state’, provided in the OECD’s 1997 Report. The third examines the possible place of networks of public private partnerships in the context of the new regulatory state and is followed by a short conclusion.