Aida is a 62-year-old retired grandmother living in Uganda. She receives a video on her smartphone forwarded by her cousin of a child crying after getting a measles vaccine. Should she forward it? That’s the decision players of Choose Your Own Fake News, an online game targeted at tackling disinformation…
The Tax Office is rethinking government interventions and services for a complex world using a new, multi-disciplinary approach. Assistant Commissioner Misha Kaur discusses the value of systems thinking. At the beginning of this year, few could have imagined we’d end up hoarding toilet paper and spending months in our houses.…
Testing the logic behind your arguments can only strengthen them, argues the head of Zoos Victoria. For some, ‘ethics’ may invoke memories of integrity training, or perhaps ancient philosophical texts. But it can also serve as a very practical tool for leaders to ask themselves whether they’re making the right…
The former premier discusses evacuating a hospital while a cyclone loomed, finding leadership lessons in everyday life, and working from home for the first time in her career. Leading in a major crisis is a tough job requiring difficult calls to be made on imperfect information — and one Anna…
Marty Edwards The pandemic has highlighted security vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, says a veteran of the US government’s cyber emergency response team. The shift to widespread working from home has opened up new opportunities for cyber crime, warns critical infrastructure security expert Marty Edwards. “In the move to a home…
Investing in policy labs and innovation hubs could help Australian governments tackle other policy problems as well as we’ve responded to COVID-19. Lisa Paul and Ben Hubbard recently discussed the importance of war-gaming and institutional capability. Lisa Paul The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated how effective Australian governments can be in a crisis, says…
Good record-keeping will allow the story of the coronavirus pandemic to be told. The challenge is making sure data is still readable for future generations. David Fricker Records made during the COVID-19 pandemic will last hundreds of years, and help public servants respond to crises of the future, says David…
To mark Privacy Awareness Week, Victoria’s anti-corruption commissioner the Honourable Robert Redlich QC shares his tips for how the public sector can protect against the risk of unauthorised release or misuse of sensitive public sector information, particularly when working from home. Robert Redlich Responding to the COVID-19 emergency is an…
Don’t wait until you start getting health problems to set up your work from home space properly, warns ergonomics expert Jodi Oakman. And forgive yourself if you can’t do everything perfectly at the moment — “sometimes good enough is okay”. Having a daily schedule while working from home is useful,…
With governments rushing to push out new programs, this implementation checklist can help you avoid common pitfalls. The coronavirus pandemic is moving quickly, and so is the government response to it. But as we saw in the global financial crisis, fast policy responses can easily fall prey to implementation problems.…
Whether you’re a secretary or middle manager, taking the right approach to guiding staff through the COVID-19 crisis is vital for maintaining wellbeing. We aren’t just living in strange times, but working through them too. Jono Nicholas While many of life’s basic activities are interrupted, with offices empty, schools closed,…
COVID-19 ROAD TO RECOVERY — WHAT GOVERNMENTS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER: There are plenty of examples of governments handling the containment of the virus very wrong and there are some excellent cases of nations getting it very right. In this series of Mandarin Premium features, introduced by Chris Johnson,…
COVID-19 ROAD TO RECOVERY — WHAT GOVERNMENTS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER: Policymakers are now trying to work out what we should be aiming for — total elimination of the virus, or merely keeping it under control until a vaccine is available. David Donaldson spoke with several scholars for their…
COVID-19 ROAD TO RECOVERY — WHAT GOVERNMENTS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER: This pandemic has put federal and state governments between the devil and the deep blue sea when it comes to managing risk, writes Verona Burgess. Nothing is more important for the Australian Public Service, in helping chart the “road…
Crises make record-keeping more difficult, but the spectre of a post-crisis inquiry will be in the back of many minds. So what do public servants need to consider as they respond to COVID-19 — especially following Glenys Beauchamp’s admission she destroyed her notebooks? Record-keeping is vital in government — it’s…