This issue

– COVID-19 as a leadership game changer 
– Chinese-Australians in the Australian public service 
– make healing happen 
– good data and trust 
– climate change and security 
Plus what I'm reading.

Research brief: COVID-19 as a game changer for public administration and leadership 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the public sector is facing turbulent problems characterised by the emergence of unpredictable and uncertain events. A paper in Public Management Review discusses turbulence as well as examples of robust governance strategies. Read our brief on the paper.

Chinese-Australians in the Australian Public Service 

A Lowy Institute policy brief argues Chinese-Australians are underutilised in the Australian Public Service (APS) and are central to our future engagement with the global superpower. Being China-literate not only means having a good understanding of Chinese languages, but also of China’s political economy, cultures, traditions, histories, and societies. 

What is the problem? 

Chinese–Australians are invaluable sources of China-related expertise, yet are underrepresented in APS roles. Reasons include: 

• limited recruitment efforts 
• problems with gaining security clearances  
• failure to match existing skills with public service roles 
• preconceptions based on perceived security risks. 

Where China literacy does exist in the public service, it is often underutilised or undervalued. The dearth of China capability means the APS is not drawing on an important source of talent, skills, and advice to develop Australia’s policies on China. 

What should be done? 

The APS needs to value China expertise and capabilities within its ranks. It also needs to recruit more Chinese-Australians in policy roles. It should do so by: 

• matching skills, experiences, and interests with roles and positions instead of looking at generic skillsets by classification level 
• target culturally and linguistically diverse communities for recruitment 
• foster integrated policymaking, where interdisciplinary thinking and country and regional expertise is valued across the public service 
• create a 'China-interest' community within the public service, linking with academia and think tanks 
• review the security clearance process to account for potential opportunities lost. 

Make healing happen 

The Stolen Generations are the current survivors of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were removed from their families as a result of government policies across Australian jurisdictions in the 20th century. Stolen Generations survivors have endured a lifetime of trauma, grief and loss. As a result, they carry a significant burden of health, wellbeing, social and economic disadvantage. 

The Make Healing Happen report from The Healing Foundation provides an in-depth insight into the experiences of Stolen Generations survivors and the extent and complexity of their contemporary needs as they grow older. It sets out a plan to achieve lasting healing for Stolen Generations survivors, their families and communities. 

It was released in conjunction with a new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which provides an analysis of comparative differences for the Stolen Generations survivors aged 50 and over. It estimates the number of Stolen Generations survivors has more than doubled from 17,150 in 2014-15 to 33,600 in 2018-19. 

At a glance 

Compared to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of the same age, Stolen Generations survivors aged 50 and over were: 

• 1.8 times as likely not to be the owner of a home 
• 1.6 times as likely to live in a household that could not raise $2,000 in an emergency 
• 1.7 times as likely to have experienced discrimination due to being Indigenous 
• 1.4 times as likely to have a severe or profound disability 
• 1.4 times as likely to have poor mental health 

Compared to the general non-Indigenous population, Stolen Generations survivors aged 50 and over are: 

• 4.6 times as likely to have kidney disease 
• 3.1 times as likely to have diabetes 
• 3.0 times as likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 
• 2.7 times as likely to have heart, stroke or vascular diseases 

Good data stems from how data is handled with consideration for privacy, fairness, social justice, ethics and legal compliance. By handling data properly, data users can gain the trust of the public and this in turn increases people's willingness to provide data.  

This White Paper from the World Economic Forum presents two frameworks as tools for accelerating innovation while building trust.  

The importance of trust 

The White Paper focuses on the relationship between social uncertainty and trust. Social uncertainty exists between data users and data subjects due to: 

• information asymmetry 
• the characteristics of data: intangible, ease of reproduction and transfer 

Social uncertainty is when it is difficult for individual data subjects to accurately understand how data users manage or use their data. As individuals must give consent to for use of their data despite this social uncertainty, what is important is the role of trust.  

Thinking about ways to build trust requires an understanding of trust and trustworthiness. Trust may be generated by actions such as imposing a heavy punishment or complying with certification from a recognised standard-setting body. These are ways that help data users build trust as they objectively demonstrate their motives, actions and competencies: they are demonstrating trustworthiness. 

After the fires? Climate change and security in Australia 

The devastating bushfires of late 2019/ early 2020 placed Australia in the international spotlight. The unprecedented scale, number and severity of these fires drew attention to the role of Australia’s changing climate. It also triggered debates about the link between climate change and security. A paper in the Australian Journal of Political Science examines the climate change-security relationship in the Australian context. 

What is the relationship? 

Debates about climate change and security have emerged from the existential nature of the threat posed by the fires to people, communities and ecosystems - a direct and immediate threat to their survival.   

The UN Security Council has increasingly recognised and discussed the international security implications of climate change. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) integrated assessment report featured a chapter detailing the implications of climate change for human security. 

Climate change and security in Australia 

The IPCC has categorised Australia as facing a mid-level degree of vulnerability to climate change in comparative terms. Beyond the threats to human and ecological security, the case can also be made that Australia faces a range of challenges viewed through the lens of national and/or international security. 

These include: 

• challenges posed to Australia’s defence capability in ensuring infrastructure, equipment and personnel can cope with effects of climate change and can be deployed to respond effectively. 
• the likelihood of contestation and even conflict over increasingly significant (and often dwindling) common resources such as fisheries in the Pacific. 
• the prospect of climate-induced unauthorised migration in the Pacific region. 

1. Productivity priorities post-pandemic

A recent speech from the Chair of the Productivity Commission, Michael Brennan, flagged two dark clouds on the horizon that could undermine Australia’s rebound from the pandemic: 

• a renewed promotion of ideas of national self-sufficiency and sovereign capability  
• a bullish view about ever-expanding debt and deficit as an ongoing approach to fiscal policy. 

 Brennan advocated an open debate about Australia’s productivity challenge. However the debate should include an honest appraisal of the things we had right before the pandemic and from which any departure would come at great cost to current and future generations. 

2. A guide to commonly used statistical terms

The Australian Parliamentary Library has produced a handydandy guide to commonly used statistical terms. If you don’t know: 

• causation from correlation 
• time series from break in series 
• confidence intervals from confidentiality 

… then this is the guide for you.   

‘Til the next issue

Maria Katsonis