Australia’s governments, both state and federal, are failing to undertake best practice policy-making. This failure is undermining the quality of public policy and is having a detrimental impact on faith in public institutions. The Institute of Public Affairs has undertaken analysis of 20 public policies using the ten criteria of the Wiltshire test for good...

The research sought to understand what Australians think about government debt, which kinds of debt recovery measures are palatable, and what effective issue framing in budget repair would look like.

This project was designed to test the proposition that high quality, non-partisan, non-advocacy based opinion polling could become a useful asset in policy making.

Policies are often built ‘on the run’ as quick reactions to the political issue of the day, designed to capture the interest of the 24-hour news cycle or motivated by short-term political advantage. This report addresses the problem that policymaking in Australia is falling short of best practice.

The aim of this project was to coax more evidence-based policy decisions by all tiers of government by reviewing and rating 20 high profile government decisions against the Wiltshire business case criteria. This report outlines the IPA's contribution to the debate.