Who Dares Loses

Wayne Wayne Errington, Peter van Peter van Onselen

Why does Australia go through cycles of public policy boldness and timidity? The COVID-19 crisis has shown that the Australian political system has much more tolerance for policy innovation than appeared to be the case on the evidence of the previous twenty years. As another election approaches, though, the signs are that both major parties are keen for a return to policy caution. In Who Dares Loses: Pariah Policies, Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen explain the political constraints on policymakers and the ways in which they are changing. The obvious comparison to the policy urgency of COVID-19 is climate change, where successive governments have failed to rise to the challenge. Framing climate change as an emergency won't make any difference to the web of interests that has prevented an effective response from Australian governments. However, climate change is one of a series of...