Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries - Practice and Potential analyses the impact of public inquiries on policy and administration, their practices and processes and the factors which make them effective. While the volume focuses mainly on Australia, there is also up-to-date analysis of public inquiries in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. The contributors to Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries include leading Australian and international academic experts, practitioners, commentators, judges and researchers including: Nicholas Aroney, Gary Banks, Stephen Bartos, Linda Courtenay Botterill, Frank Brennan AO, Rosalind Croucher, Geoff Davies AO, Henry Ergas, Philip Flood AO, Paddy Gourley, Grant Hoole, John Humphreys, Kenneth Kitts, Tony Makin, Scott Prasser, Janet Ransley, Charles Sampford, Alan Simpson, Graeme Starr, Mark Thomson, Rodney Tiffen, Helen Tracey and Roger Wettenhall. Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries - Practice and Potential is part of the Government, Policy and Politics Series, a joint initiative of Connor Court Publishing and Griffith University. The series explores past, present and future developments in Australian government, policy and politics. The Editors: Scott Prasser has worked in federal and state governments in senior research and policy roles and is author of Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries in Australia (2006). He holds undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from the universities of Queensland and Griffith. Helen Tracey has had a successful career in public policy, mainly in education with the Commonwealth Government and has worked at the Public Policy Institute of the Australian Catholic University. Helen has academic qualifications in political science, public policy and education from the Australian National University and the University of London (Institute of Education).

The Abbott Government has announced a National Commission of Audit to review the Commonwealth's finances and to assess the role and scope of government and where areas of overlap and duplication between the federal and state governments can be reduced. It is the fourteenth audit commission appointed in Australia since the NSW Greiner Coalition Government formed the first commission in 1988. Since then audit commissions have become a feature of incoming, mostly non-Labor state, territory and national governments. Audit commissions have heralded major changes in the structure of public services, cuts to government spending, new ways of delivering services and a re-writing of the very boundaries of government. They have been hailed by some as mechanisms for promoting overdue reform and for pushing through needed change. Critics have seen them as being ideologically driven, touting outdated remedies and being used by governments to justify decisions already made about cuts to public services. Yet despite their repeated use for over a quarter of century, and the claims and counter claims about their roles and value, there has been no comparative study of audit commissions in Australian politics and policy. Audit Commissions: Reviewing the Reviewers is the first comprehensive assessment of all fourteen state, territory and federal audit commissions established since 1988. That audit commissions are a particular Australian institution makes this study of value to both Australian and international audiences. The volume outlines the history, reasons for appointment, roles, processes, members, impact and suggests where audit commissions fit in the overall architecture of Australian government. Kate Jones is Research Fellow at ACU's Public Policy Institute, with qualifications in politics, economics and librarianship. After researching and writing about parliaments, parliamentary committees and parliamentarians, Kate has focussed in her recent research on aspects of public and social policy. She has also worked for state and federal governments and in two parliaments. Kate gained her PhD from La Trobe University. Scott Prasser was the inaugural Executive Director of the Public Policy Institute at ACU and previously worked in senior policy and research positions in federal and state governments. He has written extensively on Australian public policy and politics and in 2006 had published Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries in Australia. Scott's PhD was awarded by Griffith University.