The Westminster Tradition

In honour of forthcoming Victorian and NSW elections, we are republishing this episode during our late winter hiatus. Enjoy!!
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The starter's gun has gone on Australia's national elections for 2025 and Parliament has been prorogued.
In this episode, former head of Cabinet Office and keeper of the Caretaker Conventions, Alison answers Caroline and Danielle's increasingly pointed questions, and we end with arguing about the importance of formatting.
Stay tuned to the end for some fabulous insider advice for managing caretaker period and elections as a public servant. 
This episode is dedicated to the significant birthday of Sandy Pitcher, a public service legend (read more about her here).
Intro grab courtesy of the Hon Nat Cook MP, Minister for Human Services (SA).
This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land, and we recognise Kaurna elders past and present. Always was, always will be.
Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 

'Til next time!

Danielle talks with Georgia Heath from Yup Yup Labs about what becomes obvious when you design services from far away, and why remote communities expose the hidden assumptions baked into policy, technology and “digital by default”.
We also dig into who gets excluded when the public service recruits narrowly, and what changes when we treat people with lived experience as genuine partners with real power.
Other topics include:
• what remoteness reveals about telecommunications, emergencies and climate impacts
• where telehealth helps and where it breaks, including dental care and wet season realities
• what strong outreach models look like, including the Deadly Ears ear health approach
• why older non-university pathways created real mobility and better service design
• how class, schooling and workplace norms shape who gets into decision-making rooms
• what happens when job services misread capability and drain confidence
• how trauma-informed management, explicit rules and timely feedback lift performance
• why plain English writing improves access, trust and policy outcomes.
This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land, and we recognise Kaurna elders past and present. Always was, always will be.
Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 

'Til next time!

We talk with Eleanor Williams from the Australian Centre for Evaluation about making evaluation fast, rigorous, and genuinely useful for public service decisions. We move from a 40,000-person employment services RCT to the practical steps that make testing possible, then unpack why transparency and mixed methods matter when the stakes are high. Along the way we discuss:
turning a mutual obligation debate into a 'fact question'  through a large three-arm randomised controlled trial
why a null result can be a powerful policy signal
the enablers that make responsive RCTs feasible, from systems to leadership to ethics and consent
how ACE partners with departments through a hub-and-spoke model, secondments, and capability building
planning evaluation from day one using program logic and theory of change
separating program cost from evaluation cost to make smarter investment decisions
publishing and normalising evidence through the ACE Evaluation Library
using developmental evaluation and test-and-learn without getting stuck refining measures forever
what decision makers value under time pressure, including “killer stats” plus narrative and qualitative insight
improving services with small, fast trials like pre-call SMS nudges at Services Australia
Mentioned in this episode:
Australian Centre for Evaluation
ACE Evaluation Library, hosted on the Australian Policy Observatory
The Magenta Book
Anthony Costello, The Social Edge
This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land, and we recognise Kaurna elders past and present. Always was, always will be.
Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 

'Til next time!

Three-quarters of government evaluations are commissioned to improve implementation. Two-thirds are commissioned for accountability.
They're not the same thing, and building a system that serves both turns out to be harder than it looks.
This episode is about the structural tension between backward-looking accountability — did we deliver what we promised? — and the forward-looking question of whether we're actually learning anything useful.
Caroline argues the current measurement architecture is structurally bad at three things: it locks in categories at the moment of maximum ignorance, it treats evidence as binary when almost everything useful lives in the middle, and it has no way of capturing what you found out that you didn't know you were looking for.
There's also a detour through lifts, chin hairs, tattoo-level decisions, and Marie-Antoinette's diningware.
Referenced in the pod:
The APS State of Evaluation report (2026) — the list of why government commissions evaluations
Andrew Greenway's article on Sir Olly Robbins and The Accountability Act
Adam Kucharski's article Do we need more 'aluminium-standard' evidence?
Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David Epstein
Tom Loosemore Universal Credit TWT episode 
This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land, and we recognise Kaurna elders past and present. Always was, always will be.
Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 

'Til next time!

Budget season is here — and it’s tighter than many public servants have been used to. Across Australian jurisdictions, governments are landing budgets with real constraints: restrained spending, savings packages, efficiency dividends, and the ever-popular one-in-two-out hiring freeze.
In this episode, Caroline, Alison and Danielle get into what that actually means for the people who have to keep delivering. How do you lead a team through savings without poisoning the culture? What’s the difference between a genuine moral injury and just disagreeing with a prioritisation decision? And is the blunt force of FTE targets and advertising bans the problem — or just a feature of a system that has tried everything else?
They also get into the real work: Danielle on essential vs lovely and what service redesign actually looks like when the envelope gets tighter, plus the Stockdale paradox, why constraints might be good for your team (sorry), and some practical advice for junior staff trying not to doom-spiral.
Budget constraint isn’t persecution. It’s elected officials doing what they were elected to do with taxpayer money. Suck it up, and here’s how.
Mentioned in this episode:
Brené Brown and Adam Grant on the Stockdale Paradox — The Curiosity Shop
David Epstein, Inside the Box: How constraints make us better 
Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage

This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land, and we recognise Kaurna elders past and present. Always was, always will be.
Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 

'Til next time!