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The Gatekeepers
(from website of Random House Books Australia)
So, you want to be Chief of Staff to the Australian Prime Minister? The Gatekeepers provides the key lessons to equip you for the job.
Australian prime ministers need help and it is their chief of staff who supports the person and the office, steering the prime minister through the challenges and landmines of political leadership. It is about making sure the urgent doesn't crowd out the important. It comes down to finely tuned coordination. It is about winning support in cabinet, caucus and country.
The Gatekeepers offers unparalleled insights into how things really work at the centre of Australia's governing networks from those who have worked as chiefs of staff under prime ministers from Fraser to Rudd. It identifies eight key lessons for success as the PM's gatekeeper and shock absorber.
It reveals what to do, what not to do, how to do it and how not to do it.
So, you want to be Chief of Staff to the Australian Prime Minister? The Gatekeepers provides the key lessons to equip you for the job.
Australian prime ministers need help and it is their chief of staff who supports the person and the office, steering the prime minister through the challenges and landmines of political leadership. It is about making sure the urgent doesn't crowd out the important. It comes down to finely tuned coordination. It is about winning support in cabinet, caucus and country.
The Gatekeepers offers unparalleled insights into how things really work at the centre of Australia's governing networks from those who have worked as chiefs of staff under prime ministers from Fraser to Rudd. It identifies eight key lessons for success as the PM's gatekeeper and shock absorber.
It reveals what to do, what not to do, how to do it and how not to do it.
- GenresPolitics
200 pages, Paperback
First published July 29, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 4, 2015
Provides a good account of political life, attempts to go beyond the West-Wing-esque fantasy vision of politics that has become a prevalent view inside and outside of politics alike.
The former Chiefs-of-Staff that the authors have managed to pull together in their focus group is impressive. However, it would have been useful to have those CoS from the Rudd and Gillard years. This may have improved their attempted analysis of what went right and wrong in those years. However, the analysis they do make of those years by drawing upon the comments and observations made by CoS from Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard administrations, is a sound (and perhaps accurate) one.
For political and non-political readers alike, this is worth a look.
The former Chiefs-of-Staff that the authors have managed to pull together in their focus group is impressive. However, it would have been useful to have those CoS from the Rudd and Gillard years. This may have improved their attempted analysis of what went right and wrong in those years. However, the analysis they do make of those years by drawing upon the comments and observations made by CoS from Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard administrations, is a sound (and perhaps accurate) one.
For political and non-political readers alike, this is worth a look.
January 5, 2015
A helpful summary of the issues facing a CoS. While based on round table discussions with PMO CoS from Fraser-Rudd, it will help CoS at the state level to get their head around some of the challenges of the role.
It's not an exciting book, more of a basic factual guide (weighted to an academic, bureaucratic perspective, while acknowledging that political staffers also have a key role the PS cannot fulfil).
It's not an exciting book, more of a basic factual guide (weighted to an academic, bureaucratic perspective, while acknowledging that political staffers also have a key role the PS cannot fulfil).
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews