Aotearoa-New Zealand walks between two cultural worlds - Māori[1] and Western/Anglo traditions - which were embedded following British colonisation, what happens when social policy is designed to reflect these worlds? Māori have perpetually demanded their perspectives be listened to and acted on in public policy since colonisation, but in the past 30 years this call has been gaining broader support. In 2010, Whānau Ora health and social initiative was legislated into action. This came after years of former Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector Hon. Dame Tariana Turia agitating for change to how Māori health and social services were delivered. For Māori, whānau[2] sits at the centre of culture and community. Whānau Ora, “family wellbeing” in Māori, aims to improve outcomes across areas such as health, education, housing, and employment, with a focus on the hauora of the whānau, as opposed to the traditional focus on individual crisis intervention. “Hauora” is a Māori philosophy of wellbeing entailing four mutually supportive dimensions: taha tinana (physical wellbeing); taha hinengaro (mental and emotional wellbeing); taha whanau (social wellbeing); and taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing) (Durie 1994). As background, it is important to recognize that a central goal of this endeavor is to recognize in Whānau Ora the principle that whānau are best placed to develop their own plans to meet their needs and achieve their aspirations. This contrasts with past practice where services are thrust upon them in times of crisis and with little consideration for their strengths.. Thus, this radical shift towards whānau self-determination required different approaches to developing and implementing Whānau Ora. While not drawing directly from Agile methodology, Whānau Ora shares many of the principles of it, but through a particular Māori and pasifika[3] lens. This case shows us that application of the principles of agile government can be seen in delivering services in a manner that resonates in many communities and has roots in a wide variety of practices.

Australia Post faced both disruption and opportunity as the digital era began to shift consumer demands towards ecommerce. The government business enterprise needed to adjust to these headwinds, so in 2012, it embarked on a reinvention of how its Digital Division operated. On a quest to improve customer experience, the Division grew from 15 to 270 open and collaborative people in a couple of years. The Digital Division consciously adopted the Agile methodology in setting out on its transformation.

This article explores key challenges emanating from COVID-19 and how public management and administration research can contribute to addressing them. To do this I discuss the ‘big questions’ debate and then sketch two big thematic challenges. In articulating these, I point to interconnections across various levels of analysis and argue we need to work across a range of boundaries and get more comfortable with complexity. My key argument being that both during and in the aftermath of a catastrophic global pandemic, it is at the intersections, not in silos, that we are likely to move forward intellectually and practically.

Key Points This Policy Brief makes the following key points: (a) COVID-19 has laid bare the capacity challenges faced by governments and exacerbated entrenched disadvantage and inequality. The pandemic has acted as an accelerant of many problems that confront governments, shining light on how decades of reform have eroded government capacity and bought to the fore deep divisions in society. (b) Practitioners and scholars can work together on big challenges that confront us during the crisis and in the aftermath. We need a pivot from ‘big questions’ towards ‘big challenges’, so that public administration and management scholars can work closely with practitioners to address these challenges in real time. (c) To make a difference we need new ways of working collaboratively. If we are keen to collaborate in this crisis and beyond it makes more sense to look to successful collaborations rather than dwell on supposed tensions between scholars and practitioners.

Background: The current model of care for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) in Australia is through specialist Hepatology or Infectious Diseases clinics, and limited accredited primary care practices. Capacity is limited, and less than 5% of Australians living with CHB currently access therapy. Increasing treatment uptake is an urgent area of clinical need. Nucleos(t)ide analogue therapy is safe and effective treatment for CHB that is suitable for community prescribing. We have evaluated the success of a community-based model for the management of CHB in primary care clinics using a novel web-based clinical tool. Methods: Using guidelines set out by the Gastroenterological Society of Australia, we developed an interactive online clinical management tool for the shared care of patients with CHB in primary care clinics, with remote oversight from tertiary hospital-based hepatologists and a project officer. We call this model of care the "B in IT" program. Suitable patients were referred from the specialist liver clinic back to primary care for ongoing management. Compliance with recommended appointments, pathology tests and ultrasounds of patients enrolled in "B in IT" was assessed and compared to that of the same patients prior to community discharge, as well as a matched control group of CHB outpatients continuing to attend a specialist clinic. Results: Thirty patients with CHB were enrolled in the "B in IT" program. Compliance with attending scheduled appointments within 1 month of the suggested date was 87% across all 115 visits scheduled. Compliance with completing recommended pathology within 1 month of the suggested date was 94% and compliance with completing recommended liver ultrasounds for cancer screening within 1 month of the suggested date was 89%. The compliance rates for visit attendance and ultrasound completion were significantly higher than the control patient group (p < 0.0001) and the "B in IT" patients prior to community discharge (p = 0.002 and p = 0.039, respectively). Conclusions: The "B in IT" program's novel web-based clinical tool supports primary care physicians to treat and monitor patients with CHB. This program promotes community-based care and increases system capacity for the clinical care of people living with CHB.

This Special Issue contains a selection of articles presented at a workshop, ‘Emerging Business Models and the Evolving Regulatory Response: Perspectives from Australia and Beyond’. This workshop brought together a group of scholars, policymakers and graduate students actively working on, or otherwise interested in, the broad themes of labour and employment regulation and enforcement. The workshop was held in July 2018, with the generous support of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law at the University of Melbourne.

The importance of accountability has long been sheeted home to the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), the federal statutory agency responsible for enforcement of minimum employment standards under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). In the immediate aftermath of Work Choices, the activities of the regulator were mired in controversy. In particular, the agency’s involvement in a number of high profile and hotly contested cases led to accusations that one of its predecessor agencies, the Office of Workplace Services (OWS), was politically motivated and acting as the Howard Coalition Government’s “secret police”. In light of the agency’s rather harrowing experiences in the wake of Work Choices, it is not surprising that the FWO now places a heavy emphasis on the importance of independence, transparency and accountability. Drawing on an extended concept of accountability, this article will undertake a preliminary assessment of the various accountability mechanisms which currently apply to the FWO and question whether these checks are adequate to guard against the criticisms previously levelled at the organisation.

Since early 2006, the federal labour inspectorate, now known as the Fair Work Ombudsman ('FWO'), has been both active and innovative in promoting and enforcing employment standards. While various enforcement tools are available to the FWO, civil remedy litigation has been an especially visible aspect of the agency's compliance activities. This article surveys the litigation activities of the federal labour inspectorate from I July 2006 to 30 June 2012. We explore the extent to which litigation has fluctuated over the past six years; the types of contraventions that have been pursued; the characteristics of respondents; and any patterns in remedies and outcomes. We consider the extent to which the FWO's changing approach to litigation reflects influential approaches to regulatory enforcement, including responsive regulation and strategic enforcement. Our assessment of the data suggests that the FWO has made increasing use of civil remedy litigation and the deterrence effects of this intervention have been amplified through prominent use of media. While the agency has become bolder in its use of litigation by targeting a wider range of individuals and entities, there is still some room to seek alternative court sanctions in order to achieve greater deterrence and more sustainable compliance behaviour.