WHO DEFINES THE PUBLIC INTEREST?
Edited by TOM FRAME
Paperback, 196 pages.
Release Date: December 2018
ISBN: 9781925826234
Who defines the public interest? As the contributors to the collection
have shown, the question itself is complex: which public and whose
interests? The answer is controversial as well: it is not simply
politicians and bureaucrats although they have a prominent role.
Journalists and academics, community leaders and private citizens have
all seized the initiative and asserted their entitlement as members of
the public to assert shared interests and common aspirations principally
in advocacy but sometimes through action. Does the authority to define
the public interest come with a duty to see it promoted and protected?
In addition to canvassing competing visions and contrasting expressions
of the public interest and their relationship to the common good, the
contributors also examine the limits of public interest claims and how a
range of professional groups might discharge their obligation to act in
the public interest.
Chapters Include:
- Setting the scene -- John McMillan
- The public interest and the common good: synonymous or a subset -- Andrew Cameron
- Public interest as an accountability test -- Chris Wheeler
-The public interest: the essence of public leadership -- Tom Frame
- The public interest: the exclusive preserve of government? -- David Kemp
- Public interest and political parties -- Rodney Cavalier
- The public interest and public sector priorities -- John Uhr
- Balancing competing: public interests within the public sector -- Geoff Gallop
- The public interest and media reporting -- Shaun Carney
- Public interest and disciplinary communities -- Jane Johnston
- Postscript -- Tom Frame
Professor Tom Frame is Director of the Public Leadership Research
Group at UNSW Canberra and the Howard Library at Provisional (Old)
Parliament House. The contributors to this collection include former
federal and state cabinet ministers, civil servants, journalists and
scholars from a number of Australian universities.