Australia
Brazil
Canada
Germany
India
Ireland
Japan
Mexico
New Zealand
Philippines
South Africa
United Kingdom
Government That Doesn't Suck
Also in History
Government
The Westminster Tradition
by The Westminster Tradition
Today: #5 in Government, Australia on our combined chart.
Today: #63 in Government, New Zealand on our combined chart.
Chart positions today · United States
Not on the United States charts we track today.
Not on the United Kingdom charts we track today.
Not on the Canada charts we track today.
Not on the Germany charts we track today.
Not on the Brazil charts we track today.
Not on the Mexico charts we track today.
Not on the Ireland charts we track today.
Not on the India charts we track today.
Not on the Japan charts we track today.
Not on the Philippines charts we track today.
Not on the South Africa charts we track today.
If you like The Westminster Tradition, try…
Once a Warrior: Life Beyond the Uniform
Also in History
Understanding Congress
Also in History
Fiasco
Also in History
Consider the Constitution
Also in History
CuriosiD
Also in History
Ranking history · United States
No ranking history for this show in United States over the last 14 days.
Latest episodes
-
🔥🤫 “A deal is a deal is a deal”: Operation Richmond, Part 2 🤫🔥
October 26, 2026 · 55 minIn Part 1, a secret deal was struck in a hotel room and walked into Cabinet as a “UFU proposal”. In Part 2, the deal has to survive contact with everyone who wasn’t in the room. We start at the Fair Work Commission, where the “independent…
-
🔥🤝 “Handshake has occurred”: Operation Richmond, Part 1 🤝🔥
October 12, 2026 · 54 minIn 2016, the Andrews government settled a bitter, years-long dispute with the firefighters’ union in a hotel room, then spent the next two years pretending it hadn’t. In August, Victoria’s anti-corruption commission IBAC tabled its special…
-
**Revisit** ☎️ The Hon Amanda Vanstone AO - Inside the Westminster Machine
September 28, 2026 · 1 hr 12 minWe are reliably informed that when this episode dropped a current Cabinet minister rang The Hon Amanda Vanstone and congratulated her. That’s a good enough reason for us to republish this during our hiatus! Note there’s also a follow up…
-
**Revisit** 🏉 The Royal Commission we should have? The 2013 Essendon Football Club supplements scandal
September 14, 2026 · 34 minYou might like to get in the mood for AFL footy finals by revisiting this first episode of our three part series on the Essendon Footy club drug scandal! Meanwhile we will keep enjoying our late winter / early spring hiatus 😇 **** “Lack…
-
**Revisit** 🗳️ Election special 🗳️ Caretaker conventions, IGBs and some 🥳 vox pops 🥳
August 31, 2026 · 51 minIn honour of forthcoming Victorian and NSW elections, we are republishing this episode during our late winter hiatus. Enjoy!! **** The starter's gun has gone on Australia's national elections for 2025 and Parliament has been prorogued. In…
Show 7 more episodesShow fewer episodes
-
🐊When the rains come: the gap between policy and delivery in remote Australia with Georgia Heath 🐊
August 17, 2026 · 1 hr 28 minDanielle talks with Georgia Heath from Yup Yup Labs about what becomes obvious when you design services from far away, and why remote communities expose the hidden assumptions baked into policy, technology and “digital by default”. We also…
-
🧪🧮 We CAN test big policy ideas without slowing government down: Eleanor Williams from the Australian Centre for Evaluation 🧮🧪
August 3, 2026 · 40 minWe talk with Eleanor Williams from the Australian Centre for Evaluation about making evaluation fast, rigorous, and genuinely useful for public service decisions. We move from a 40,000-person employment services RCT to the practical steps…
-
The moment of maximum ignorance: evaluation in public policy part 2
July 20, 2026 · 49 minThree-quarters of government evaluations are commissioned to improve implementation. Two-thirds are commissioned for accountability. They're not the same thing, and building a system that serves both turns out to be harder than it…
-
💰 ‘Not your money’: reflections from government budget season ✂️
July 6, 2026 · 39 minBudget season is here — and it’s tighter than many public servants have been used to. Across Australian jurisdictions, governments are landing budgets with real constraints: restrained spending, savings packages, efficiency dividends, and…
-
Grumpy, elusive creatures defending well-defined territory: evaluation in public policy 🦡
June 22, 2026 · 54 minIn 1997, Tony Blair’s government inherited a problem: tuberculosis in cattle was rising, farmers were furious, and nobody agreed on whether badgers were responsible. The solution was to commission a gold-standard randomised control trial…
-
Fight club: things we never agree on
June 8, 2026 · 57 minInspired by the new podcast The Curiosity Shop, Alison, Danielle and Caroline take on the things they might never agree on — welcome to TWT Fight Club. In the ring: Do academic and conceptual frameworks actually help public servants do…
-
Smart dissent: middle management
May 25, 2026 · 54 minA new hypothetical scenario, this time from the big smoosh of middle management. Imagine if... your Minister has announced a 15-day processing target, your team is already drowning, there's no cutting corners, and there's no extra…
About the show
Unpacking lessons for the public service, starting with the Robodebt Royal Commission. In 2019, after three years, Robodebt was found to be unlawful. The Royal Commission process found it was also immoral and wildly inaccurate.
Ultimately the Australian Government was forced to pay $1.8bn back to more than 470,000 Australians.
In this podcast we dive deep into public policy failures like Robodebt and the British Post Office scandal - how they start, why they're hard to stop, and the public service lessons we shouldn't forget.