Reasons for Departmental Change Federal Government of Australia
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A ministry is a high organization of government that is usually headed by a minister and is defined to manage various public administration sectors. At different levels, the government can always reorganize ministries’ departments to offer efficient services as required in a specific ministry’. In Australia, the department of communication and arts in the Australian government was changed to ensure effective communication programs and cultural affairs. This change would enhance effective inter-departmental ordinations of activities and effective management of communications and arts by Australia’s government. Before deciding to scrap off the department of communication and arts, the department was headed by Paul, the minister for communication and arts. The department ceased its operations on 31 January 2020 due to the decision that would see the department moved and merged to the department of infrastructure, transport regional development and communications by the Australian federal government. Before this decision was taken into consideration in May 2019, the department of infrastructure, cities, and regional development was an Australian Public service department (Hands, 2020). Many issues were taken into consideration before this decision of departmental change was made. Among the notable reasons for this departmental change was the ability to access the benefit from communication services experiences and culture, cut departmental operation costs, technological space, the need to do away with bureaucracy, and have similar government policies and shared interests be merged. This paper evaluates these departmental changes made by the Australian federal government to change the department of communication and arts into the department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communications.
The need for budget cuts prompted the decision that would see the country cut some costs of operation. The Australian federal government abolished the communications and art department as a service restructure, merging it into a great new department of Infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communication. The departmental change was arrived at to reduce governments’ wastage in terms of resources since there was a duplication of activities and a high number of employees caused by the split of departments, which would otherwise be merged to perform the same functions (White & Dunleavy, 2010). The Australian government projected gains in savings, and the efficiencies resulting from the merging of departments would be redirected to better use rather than overspending and fun erosion. According to the Australian communication and arts minister, the decision to do away with the department of arts and communication was arrived at to aid in the government’s aim of cutting the ministerial operation costs and to reduce duplication of duties and wastages (Hands, 2020). As a result of the intended changes, some secretaries who would otherwise be offering duplication of roles would no longer have jobs when changes took effect, thus enhancing government savings on unnecessary expenditures and overstaffing. Reduction in budgets would encourage growth o various sectors through the use of saved expenditures in each fiscal year. Most of the wastages occur each financial year through the irregular payment of salaries to non-performing staff and the overstretched workforce within the smaller sub-departments. The extra expenditures incurred in the departments due to overstaffing of Australian ministry departments would otherwise be used to ensure a smooth flow of services to the citizens. Therefore, it was stemming out to be an administrative policy issue that was intended to cut departmental operation costs in the Australian government.
Australia as a country has risen to be a multicultural society; hence there was a call by the majority of citizens that the federal government effectively addresses the cultural issues through an amalgamation of various departments to form one single department that could be responsible for amicably handling all the social issues in the country (Alizadeh & Shearer, 2015). The federal government of Australia acknowledges the existence of multiple cultural beliefs and practices among her citizens and the importance of this rich diversity in the country’s growth and prosperity, hence strengthening the ministry departments concerned with these to set the Australian economic growth pace. Cultural diversity is an antidote to diverse talents, and this prompted the federal government of Australia to amalgamate the department of communication and arts with infrastructure, regional development, and communication. The new expanded super department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communication was seen as an antidote in providing a solution to the previously limited department of communication and arts in Australia’s federal government (Um & Boulos,2020. The merged department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communication would provide effective governance on cultural issues, and citizens of Australia would easily access services under in ministry; planning and effective implementation of cultural policies would be most effective under the super department.
One of the fundamental reasons for rearranging the Australian departments is to bring in a bigger department responsible for related issues and policies (Hands, 2020). Amalgamating government departments that handle Australia’s federal government saw related issues as a means of ensuring efficiency in service delivery without any wastages on duplicate issues, staffing, and bureaucratic handling of government activities. Similar policies touching on the same target objectives could easily be handled by the same department to give forth a sound output for the benefits of Australian Citizens. Rearranging departments to bring officers working on departmental activities with related policy issues under one roof through the creation of the amalgamated department was viewed as a way that could help fix issues arising from improper management and maximize energy to handle any departmental conflicts and rivalry that would otherwise jeopardize the overall performance of government. The federal government of Australia considered policy objective similarities in various departments and resorted to merging the related departments to solve impending conflicts in the operation and implementation of policies and government programs.
The Australian departments’ shared interest necessitated the need to do away with the communication and art department and introduce a new amalgamated department. The communication and arts, regional development among other departments within the ministries existing in the Australian cabinet, shared interests and goals; thus, having many departments duplicated services and functions. The main aim of governments world over is to give a clear implementation plan for all its policies and set goals, merging the departments with shared interest served well the federal government of Australia in her quest to ensure the policies formulated and are geared towards achieving a specific goal is done and implemented effectively and in unison with all stakeholders in place. According to the Australian government, the amalgamation of the departments would foster the harmonization of shared interests and policies that directs the common goal (Harris,2002). The shared interest amalgamated department would lead to proper policy making and service delivery.
The federal government of Australia has found that merging of departments would amicably handle the cohesion and taping of the strengths coming from the diverse cultures. Amalgamating the departments was seen as an incredible way of addressing the varied cultural issues under one roof, thus a sense of efficient operation and service to all citizens with different talents and who are from all walks of life. (Alizadeh & Shearer, 2015). The diverse cultural practices of the Australian people was considered as one of the major strengths in their development agenda; thus, there was a need to promote talents through sports and arts defectively; bringing the departments together was seen as a stepping stone towards tapping of these talents and making the departments work effectively to achieve the government objectives of promoting culture and sports. The cultural issues were considered by the federal government to be fundamental in the country’s development agenda. Thus there was a need to handle it effectively.
The need to modernize government by using technology also contributed to the merging of the department of communication and arts to the amalgamated department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communications. The modern technologies that have created space for innovation and ease of government policies have rendered some departmental officers valueless and thus prompted the need to reorganize the Australian government departments (Rebora et al., 2017 ). The federal government of Australia identify the use of modern technology such as computer as a way of reducing redundancies and extra expenditure in the departments, what one individual worker could handle using the modern technology was being handled by many employees prompting the merging of departments to cut on the unnecessary expenditure brought about by over staffing and ineffectiveness in service deliveries. The use of technology prompted the focus from obsessively using papers to the website’s use, which has integrated government operations and communications efficiently. The office forms that could be digitalized using computer programs and systems necessitated reducing the number of departments since a few workers could easily handle the operations. This efficiently could reduce the cost of running the departments as few employees were required to operate the machines.
The need to avert bureaucratic congestion pressed the communication and art department’s amalgamation to the new super department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communication (Alizadeh & Shearer, 2015). Having fewer departments was viewed as a way to do away with bureaucratic congestion, thus improving decision-making among the departmental heads within the new ministry (Baharvand et al., 2020). Australia’s federal government saw proper decision-making to ensure better delivery of services to its citizens. Having the super department where multiple issues were addressed was considered by Australia’s federal government to ensure the junior officers and the top management work on a specific goal with motivation and clear guidelines, thus averting bureaucratic dealings within the departments. The Australian government saw the introduction of a new departmental structure as motivation that would ensure greater collaboration and enhance the mechanism of solving policy challenges. Creating an amalgamated department would foster strong energy between what was happening in policies regarding communication, infrastructure delivery, and the interaction of these with regional Australia; all these were aimed at improving service delivery.
The federal government of Australia needed to bring related policy areas through merging the communication and art department. The idea of abolishing the department and creating a new mega department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communication aimed at answering the old frustrations that existed within the department of communication and arts and enhanced new priorities (Zuiderwijk & Janssen, 2014). The creation of one mega department would ease the existing tension and conflicts that arose during the implementation of various government programs, it was considered as a means of making use of skilled personnel to handle government policies of varied nature, but of the same goals, this would give a more cohesive and quality output in terms of departmental service deliveries to the Australian citizens. The creation of one department amalgamation of several issues of importance like communication, regional development, and arts would help bring together interrelated policy areas, thus promoting a focus on a specific priority that would improve service delivery to the citizens of Australia. By bringing together the related departments, public members can get information under one roof (Caust, 2015). Those seeking jobs would ease accessing the information because the communications and coordination of departmental information dissemination are centralized.
The need to share responsibilities and administrative functions also led to the consolidation of the department of arts and communication by Australia’s federal government. There was a call for efficient management of operations of departmental issues. The shared responsibilities were aimed at creating a pool of skills among workers and ensure quality output and productivity (Hands,2020). The need to have effective administrative policies managed under consolidated staff with different views and skills prompted Australia’s federal government to create this branch of the government in the efforts seen as promoting the adequate provision of the of Australia (Hands,2020 ). The main reason for this departmental merging in Australia was to identify and put in a comprehensive document the critical issue of Australia’s people, both the immigrants and the aboriginals.
The decision to abolish the department of communication by Australia’s federal government resulted from poor service delivery offered by the art department to the Australian citizens. Over the years before the amalgamation of the department of arts and communication, the arts industry has been experiencing absolute astonishment regarding its poor performance (Hands, 2020). The federal government of Australia acting to quell the department’s worsened situation saw the need to abolish the ministry and transfer duties to a more effective new department to cure the problems of Improper planning, unannounced and abrupt changes within the department that disorganized operations( Gulrajani,2018). The decision was informed at strengthening the communication and arts activities and saving it from the retarded operations that existed within the department.
The merging of the arts and communication department to the super department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communication supported the repatriation of ancestral and ancient beliefs. It diversified the process of healing and reconciliation across communities in Australia (Caust, 2015). This was effected through proper management and coordination of cultural activities, interactions, and relations by the new super-ministry that was intended to ensure proper ways of enhancing cultural interactions and advancements of ideas, beliefs, and deeds to modern technologies and ways of implementing issues are brought forth (Caust, 2015). Cross-cultural communication is promoted and supported in the efforts seen as enhancing the Australian departments’ operations and effective functioning.
The federal government of Australia restructured the department of communication and arts to ensure efficient communication and coordination of government activities. The reorganized department of communication into a more super department encompassing a wider range of activities would enhance horizontal service delivery rather than locking services vertically, hence aiding the movement of services from its current configuration and restructuring services around the citizens and businesses.
In conclusion, the administrative action by the federal government of Australia on their intention to change and abolish the government department of communication and arts into the department of infrastructure, transport, regional development, and communication resulted from cultural integrations, the need for the application of technological advancements, cutting of unnecessary expenditures and the need to have similar government roles with same goals put under one department. These departmental changes affected by Australia’s federal government resulted in many changes within the country’s projections and economic goals and ways of their implementation. The merging of departments by the federal government of Australia also brought a fair share of criticism by activists, political parties, and economic policy commentators. The criticism emanated from how the departments’ whole merging was handled, and the communication that came with it. The minister handled the criticism for communication and arts; he emphasized that the changes were necessitated by the need to cut the wage bill and departmental operations costs in the federal government ministries.
References
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