I cut my teeth as a policy advisor on successive governments’ families and income support policies in the 1980s and 1990s.

The overhaul at that time of the tax/transfer system for families in Australia, and in particular the removal of the Dependent Spouse Rebate – which I had a hand in – is an example of the sort of complicated and interacting sets of policies that we have to deal with, that demand the sort of sophisticated skills I have outlined – and where a good policy had to wait.

The Dependent Spouse Rebate was introduced in 1936 and was predominantly received by husbands through the tax system. It was consistent with the dominant social expectation that the male was the only breadwinner and head of the household.

However, by the 1970s, social change and particularly the acceptance – at least rhetorically – of notions of gender equity, together with rising concerns about family poverty, generated support in the bureaucracy and in areas of the community for change to the tax/transfer system for families.

In 1975, the Commission into Poverty recommended, among other things, that the Commonwealth government abolish regressive tax deductions to alleviate poverty in large families. Transfer payments through the social security system were viewed as a better means of mitigating poverty. The Whitlam government made some changes to tax relief for families, but the rebates remained in place.

In 1976 the Fraser government abolished the dependent children rebate and used the savings to increase transfer payments for families, which were renamed Family Allowance. The Dependent Spouse Rebate survived.

In 1986 the Social Security Review recommended wide ranging changes, including that family payments should be paid to the principal carer, usually the mother, and that transfer payments rather than tax measures were the more effective means of achieving this.

Despite strong support for this policy approach it was not until January 1993 that all children’s payments in the social security system were made to the principal carer. This increased payments to about 200,000 women in welfare dependent families. For those of us officials in Social Security at the time this was regarded as a really significant reform, and long overdue.

The Dependent Spouse Rebate, paid through the tax system, was really contrary to what was happening with income security transfer payments more broadly. Yet it survived, despite contrary policy advice. We continued to put it onto the table though, and in September 1994 the Home Child Care Allowance replaced the Dependent Spouse Rebate for families with children. It acknowledged, at last, that women were not liabilities of their husbands and that work in the home and as carers had direct economic value.

The point I want to make here is that policy exists in a specific context – it is dependent on a whole range of factors – competing priorities, fiscal constraints, the electoral cycle, presentational issues, even the strength of your Minister, and timing. It is complicated.

The GST, a policy we are now probably more familiar with, illustrates the point too. Keating could not make it happen. And, after John Hewson took it to the electorate and lost the unlosable election, most of us probably thought we had heard the last of the GST. But, clearly, the policy advice from the bureaucracy and Prime Minister Howard’s political will for a consumption tax remained. It was a policy that, it would seem, needed a few outings before the electorate were comfortable with it – the timing needed to be right.

Finally there is also an onus on those of us who are senior leaders in the Australian Public Service to make sure our employees have the capabilities they need to carry out good policy advising – good policy outcomes, do, after all, depend on it. What this demands is a really focussed strategy for developing specific capabilities in this area. An initiative worth exploring is partnerships between agencies to attract, develop and retain staff. A partnership of the social policy agencies, for example, could collaborate to attract, develop and retain staff. They could provide opportunities for staff to develop breadth and depth of experience by offering career pathways where staff move on a planned basis across say FACS, Health, Centrelink and the HIC. With each move, staff would gain experience in all facets of social policy, including policy advising.

The upcoming Management Advisory Committee report on Managing and Sustaining the APS Workforce, paying particular attention to graduate recruitment and career development, which I referred to earlier, will include other suggestions for developing our capabilities – not just for research and policy, but for all areas of our business. I think we need to canvass all the options, because if we do not get it right we really have to ask ourselves whether we are doing the job we are here for.