AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS

• FEDERAL/NATIONAL/• COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT

• STATE GOVERNMENTS• LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

• RESPONSIBLE FOR :• Collecting most taxes• Social security payments• Solely responsible for

Defence/Immigration/Foreign Affairs• Other departments may replicate state

government titles• Distributing money to states to run services

Services divide examples:

• Health: Federal Govt runs Medicare to pay doctors and patients and cover a patient hospital costs

• State Governments get money to pay for hospitals, including medical salaries and operating costs

• Infrastructure like hospitals is often a joint amount of money

Other examples

• Education• Justice System• Social and community services. Families, Housing,

Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FACSia) is the federal government department who fund many programs and develop policy papers

• Policy papers include White Paper on homelessness, Australian framework on Child Protection and white Paper on Domestic Violence

POLICY /IMPLEMENTATION

• In policy terms, the Federal Government works with State Governments (COAG) and Non-Government Organisations (NGO’S) to implement and fund many of the recommendations

• Federal govt has bigger research budget and many policy, research publications are available on government websites

• Good federal govt site is aus.gov.au

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT

• History: State governments formed a Federation in 1901 creating the Australian national government

• State govts can raise taxes but majority of money comes from the federal govt to run hospitals, schools, police, the courts, community welfare, etc. Each state then decides on their priorities and the shape of their services.

SA GOVT Departments

• sa.gov.au has a good directory of govt services• Dept of Communites and Social Inclusion has

Housing SA, Disability SA• Dept of Children and Education has Families

SA and education services such as schools• Families SA responsible for the CARL report

line (Child Abuse Report Line)

Other areas to cover: Private Sector

• Peak or third party bodies such as ACOSS or SACOSS –role and purpose

• NGO’s-:• Role, purpose, history, range, funding• Small and large NGO’s• Interaction with government• Interaction with each other

Any further points

• Silos within departments-meaning• Silos across departments • Silos across federal, state and local govt• Silos within NGO’s • Sources of information: clearing houses/govt

dept websites• Local government projects, community

development sections and social work