Northern Territory

The Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus believed power doesn’t corrupt so much as it allows one’s worst, preexisting instincts to go unchecked. His epic biography, Lives of the Caesars, showed how power made the emperors of Rome feel free to indulge their own passions and pursuits, no matter how weird or reckless — often, to their own demise. Josiah Osgood breaks it all down for you.

A social progress index is not a new idea but a UNSW Centre for Social Impact team led by Dr Megan Weier has developed and launched Australia’s first quantitative break-down of SPIs at the Australian state and territory level. It was a massive effort resulting in a true snapshot of Australia’s social standing on domestic and global benchmarks.

Boston Consulting Group senior partner and managing director Miguel Carrasco says a lack of trust is preventing departments and agencies across governments in Australia and New Zealand from delivering the effective digital services that the public has come to expect from the private sector. He gave The Mandarin his take on the viscous cycle governments find themselves in, how to overcome them, and who is leading the way.

Every Australian jurisdiction has run inquiries into Indigenous youth justice, but they vary wildly on follow-through. June Oscar and Justin Mohamed discuss where we are and what’s needed to resolve issues with Aboriginal youth experiences in our justice systems.

The federal government sensibly linked its ambitions to boost economic development in northern Australia with its Indigenous affairs policies, but a lot of the details about how this works are hidden behind opaque funding arrangements. The key body that links the two federal policies is the Indigenous Reference Group appointed in August 2017 to advise […]

Many of the issues that consume legions of public servants and media management time would be a non-event in the US, argues Craig Dalton.