Callendar G, Johnston J
Public Administration and Development, (UK), Feb 97 (17/1)
Start page: 55 No of pages: 16
Discusses the Australian government’s public sector reform initiatives, introduced over the last ten years, in order to achieve national competitive advantage, including downsizing, corporate management and commercialization, based on an economic rationalist-managerialist style of governance. 

The Government has been giving examples of how a people-centred approach has helped the New Deal for Young People include the needs of disabled people to get back into work.
It says that more than 10,000 disabled people have taken advantage of the
Government’s New Deal for Young People since it was launched nationally in April.
Disabled people claiming Jobseekers Allowance can benefit from the New Deal
immediately, without having to be unemployed for six months like other applicants. 

The Government has hailed the announcement of a rolling survey of public views about the NHS as being the tool that will deliver a ’service moulded to the needs of the people.’
From this autumn, 150,000 health service users will be polled for their views in the first annual exercise of its kind. This will be backed by rolling investigations in specific areas of health care, and detailed investigations into particular hospitals and trusts. 

Strategies for the Practitioner
Edwin Nevis (MIT Sloan School of Management, USA) , Joan Lancourt , Helen Vassallo (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA)
Before leaders can influence change, they must understand our fundamental resistance to it. In this book, the authors argue that because an organization is made up of many different perceptions of reality, there is no single method of influence that is powerful enough to transform an organization.