Policy transfer over time: a case of growing complexity

The article indicates that policy transfer has played an important role in the development of policy and legislation in Australia. Indeed, much of what is regarded as Australian policy is borrowed, usually in small part, but sometimes in its entirety, from elsewhere. One of the implications of this view is that Australian policy making processes are often, at least in part, dynamic, policy processes that draw upon a number of sources, both domestic and international. The focus of this article is upon the sources of transfer in the Australian context, both domestic and international, and how the sources drawn upon by Australian state and federal governments have changed over time. The article also indicates that on the evidence available the Australian experience with transfer can be divided into a number of phases. The first, from European colonisation to approximately the middle of the nineteenth century, the second from roughly the middle of the nineteenth century to federation at the beginning of the twentieth century, the third from the establishment of the Australian federation in 1901, to the Second World War, and the fourth phase, from the Second World War to the present.