Analysis of three Australian state-level public policies: A stakeholders’ perspective

This article investigates how different stakeholder groups perceived Tasmania Together, South Australia’s Strategic Plan, and Western Australia’s State Sustainability Strategy as overarching holistic sustainability public policies. In real politics, perception matters more than reality. Hence, understanding stakeholders’ perspectives enabled us to evaluate the perceived benefit and political implications of these policies at the Australian subnational level. In order to execute the research objectives, we conducted semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with a wide range of stakeholders (primary, secondary, and tertiary) across three states: Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia. The study revealed that socioeconomic–political discourse of a jurisdiction and the type of public policy adopted by a government are an outcome of geo-economic endowments of the jurisdiction. Lastly, the study also demonstrated how a particular group of stakeholders (primary, secondary, and tertiary) can be more useful over other groups to understand and evaluate certain specific aspects of a public policy. Keywords: Policy Evaluation, Holistic Sustainability (Economic, Social, and Environmental), Stakeholder Analysis, Semi-Structured Interview, Australian Subnational Public Policy Analysis