Making the Australian flag fleet efficient: dysfunctional policy processes and the ‘play of power’

In 1997 the Australian government introduced reform measures aimed at improving the efficiency and cost effectiveneess of the Auistralian maritime sector. These measures are part of an ongoing reform programme initiated in the early 1980s; but despite concerted efforts by a succession of governments and the payout of high labour redundancy costs the problems of inefficiency, high costs and low profitability persist. This paper focuses on the structure and mechanism of the policy making processes that have attempted to deal with the problem of making the Australian national flag fleet efficient and competitive. It does so because it is a fundamental tenet of the paper that it is the process of policy making that so frequently—if not invariably—determines policy content and outcomes.