1 Preface

Welcome to the Open Textbook, Australian Politics and Policy!^[1]

This textbook brings together a wide range of chapters on Australian government and politics, public policy and public management. Initially created by a team of 60 authors and editors, it is regularly updated and expanded to provide current and comprehensive coverage. To ensure quality, each chapter has been subjected to peer review, a process in which chapters are evaluated by other scholars knowledgeable in the field.

The purpose of the project is to:

• enhance the understanding of Australian politics, public policy and public management with an extensive, well-researched and well-written contribution to teaching materials on the subject;
• provide, with a no-cost option, flexible access to high-quality teaching materials to students of Australian politics and policy;
• provide instructors with teaching resources that complement the textbook.

The Australian Politics and Policy Open Textbook project is made possible by the financial backing of Sydney University Press (SUP), the University of Sydney Library, and the Australian and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). The contents are only possible thanks to the goodwill of the chapter authors and reviewers. This includes several independent researchers who freely provide their time and expertise to contribute to this book.

This project was conceived and brought to fruition by Peter Chen of the University of Sydney, with the first edition published in 2019 under the editorship of Peter Chen, Nicholas Barry, John R. Butcher, David Clune, Ian Cook, Adele Garnier, Yvonne Haigh, Sara C. Motta and Marija Taflaga. That was achieved with the support of the SUP team of Chelsea Sutherland and John Mahony, under the leadership of Dr Agata Mrva-Montoya.

This 2024 edition was produced as a result of the care and attention of Susan Murray (Manager, scholarly publishing), Naomi van Groll (publishing manager) and Nathan Grice (production officer) at SUP.

All the chapters in this open textbook project are subject to the Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Creative Commons licence. Under the conditions of the licence, you may:

• freely redistribute the content in this open textbook at no cost
• revise, update, transform and build upon the material.

A full copy of this licence and its conditions is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/