New public management and welfare-to-work in Australia: Comparing the reform agendas of the ALP and the Coalition

Since the 1990s, the adoption of new public management (NPM) as a management philosophy has translated into multiple waves of reform in the employment services sector in Australia, namely Working Nation (1994-96), Job Network (JN: 1996-2009) and Job Services Australia (JSA: 2009-present). Each wave has sought to improve the preceding policy. In this article, we examine changes implemented during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments. Using government policy documents and survey data from frontline employment services staff, we compare JSA to JN against five benchmarks. Our data indicate that JSA has generated modest improvement. JSA is also a system with less emphasis on strong forms of sanctioning. Our combined data suggest that policy actors operating under NPM conditions are indeed able to influence specific aspects of frontline practice, but they must spend great effort to do so and must accept new imperfections as a consequence. 1990年代以来，新型公共管理被作为一种管理哲学而被接受。这导致了就业服务部门的数次改革浪潮，即工作国（1994-96）、工作网（1996-2009）、澳大利亚工作服务（2009至今）。每波浪潮都力图改良此前的政策。本文考察了陆克文/吉拉德工党执政时期的变革。作者根据政府的政策文件、一线就业服务机构员工的调查数据等等，在五个基准点上将澳大利亚工作服务与工作网做了对比。根据我们的资料，澳大利亚工作服务这个系统带来的改进最小，也不大注重强有力的制裁。我们认为，实施新型公共管理的政策制定方的确能影响一线实践的某些方面，但他们还要花大力气，还要接受往后新的不圆满。