This issue

– leading with political astuteness
– learning policy, doing policy
– gender equity insights
– COVID-19 fallacies and hard truths
– urban productivity and affordable rental housing
Plus what I'm reading.

Research brief: Leading with political astuteness   

There is increasing recognition that managers who exercise political astuteness are more effective. For public managers, formal and informal politics is an integral part of their environment. A paper in the International Public Management Journal discusses how these skills are acquired. Read the brief.

Learning policy, doing policy ​

A new ebook from ANZSOG and ANU Press explores how policy theory is developed and applied in practice. It brings together insights from research, teaching and practice with contributions from academics and government practitioners. 

The practical realities of policy on the run 

In today’s environment, policy makers no longer have the luxury of time and resources. Decision-makers want answers to complex problems: fast.  Chapter 11 looks at how robust policy can be delivered with limited time and resources. Written by a practitioner, it presents an approach based on four questions and a triangle. 

Q1: What is the problem? 

This is a fundamental question and problem definition is an iterative process. Are there multiple problems or sub problems? 

Q2: What does the evidence tell us? 

Numerous frameworks can be used to collect and analyse evidence, however fitness for purpose should be the main criterion to determine what counts as good evidence. This includes quantitative and qualitative data, research and what citizens are telling us. 

Q3: What should we do? 

Successful solutions are found in understanding the problem and analysing the evidence. Mark Moore’s strategic triangle can be used to judge options and establish a preferred recommendation. It sets out three broad tests: 

• Does the option create public value (does it solve the problem)? 
• Is the option aligned with the authorising environment (will politicians and stakeholders support the approach)? 
• Are the operational capabilities available (is it doable)? 

Question 4: What does success look like? 

Rather than as an afterthought, the determinants of success need to be identified as part of the policy development process. 

Gender Equity Insights 2021 ​

This report outlines effective initiatives to improve gender equality across Australia’s workplaces. It is:  

• the sixth report from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and Curtin University Business School. 
• based on reporting from non-public sector organisations on their gender equality policies and practices. 

At a glance  

• Consistent application of workplace policies and actions delivers better gender equality outcomes. This translates to lower gender pay gaps and more women in senior leadership roles. 
• There is considerable evidence of a level of apathy among Australia’s biggest organisations when it comes to progressing gender equality. Organisations with a higher concentration of women tend to be the most apathetic. 

• Mining, utilities and finance outperform health care and education in good practice. 
• The gender pay gap will likely take another quarter of a century to be eliminated. For executives the gender pay gap may disappear in the next decade but the outlook is less positive for community and personal service workers, sales workers and technicians. 
• While there has been substantial progress in the representation of women on boards, women remain under-represented relative to their workforce representation in every industry except mining. 
• Board targets work but there is little ambition beyond 30 per cent.  

Researchers from universities around the world are conducting a cross-national study comparing 16 nations’ responses to the COVID-19. This includes Australia.  

An interim report published by the Harvard Kennedy School outlines a series of fallacies hard truths, puzzles and paradoxes in how countries responded to the pandemic. These are the five fallacies researchers identified that sound a cautionary note for the future, and should be abandoned by future policymakers.  

1.  A playbook can manage a plague. 

• Playbooks presume performers will play their prescribed parts.  
• If politics changes, players may throw out the script and play a different game.  
• Examples: Taiwan successfully played the SARS playbook. The US administration disregarded the Ebola playbook and played a different game. 

2. In an emergency, politics takes a backseat to policy. 

• Emergencies amplify pre-existing conditions in economic and political systems. 
• In polarised societies, crises aggravate divisions such as racial and economic disparities, political hyper-partisanship and distrust of government (e.g., Brazil, India, US). 

• In consensual societies, crises reinforce pre-existing solidarity. People temporarily set aside differences and support policies for the collective good (e.g., France, Japan, Singapore).  

3. Indicators of success and failure are clear and outcomes can be well defined and objectively measured 

• Outcome measures are always value-laden and contested.  
• Performance measures are often contradictory, and experts disagree about which ones are right or important. 

4. Science advisors enable policymakers to choose the best policies. 

• In crisis situations, technical knowledge is subject to interpretation and experts rarely speak with one voice.  
• In many countries, conflicting expert advice is the norm not the exception (e.g., Brazil, Netherlands, UK, US).  

5. Distrust in public health advice reflects scientific illiteracy. 

• Vigorous debates about the “facts” occur between experts, and not only between experts and lay people (e.g., Italy, Netherlands, UK, US). 
• Estimates, models, numbers, predictions, and overconfident expert recommendations based on evolving data can change rapidly during a crisis.

Urban productivity and affordable rental housing ​

This Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute study examined relationships between urban productivity and affordable rental housing. It focused on the location and availability of affordable rental housing relative to employment and labour markets in Australia’s capital and satellite cities. 

At a glance 

• Low-income households are a critical sector of the workforce but increasingly struggle to find affordable rental housing near employment centres of Australia’s major urban areas. 
• Over two decades, the nation’s shortage of affordable dwellings available for these households in the private rental sector has grown to 173,000 with the most extreme shortage in Sydney (60,000 dwellings).  

• The shortage is most acute in inner and middle-ring areas which offer higher accessibility to greater concentrations of employment opportunities. Renters are either enduring affordability stress, commuting burdens, or both in order to access employment opportunities.

Policy options

The report identified three policy development options: 

1. Increasing affordable rental housing near key employment areas.  
2. Improving accessibility and connectivity to outer suburban and satellite city housing markets via strategic investment in transport and communications infrastructure. 
3. Concentrated decentralisation: fostering new employment clusters through strategic place-based funding interventions and digital innovation. 

1. April fools used to make us laugh. Then came fake news 

This Economist article asks: what’s the April fool etiquette in an age of fake news? Maybe gags and hoaxes will stay on our list of temporarily relinquished pleasures, like dance floors and tables for ten. Or perhaps we will have more appetite for good-natured deception this year, now the American president is no longer producing 21 false claims a day. 

2. Blokes will be blokes

An article in Meanjin argues there has been a particular rhetoric in parliament over the past months: it’s the line that ‘boys will be boys’. Society broadly excuses aggressive behaviour by young men as though it is biological impulse. The same little boys who whack a girl with a toy truck become the young men who cat-call women. Each time new allegations emerge in Canberra, we hear a slightly altered explanation of how this was able to happen. The gist is always the same: some fella didn’t realise he wasn’t meant to treat women like this. The same argument is echoed in communities across the country. 

‘Til the next issue

Maria Katsonis