New developments

Abstract

This article offers an overview of recent attempts to reconfigure the relationship between state and civil society in Australia. The article offers five models of how state/civil society relations might play out under the Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal government. These models include corporate, nostalgic, technological, neo-liberal, and the UK government’s Big Society variants. The article concludes that the Turnbull government’s approach to civic renewal is not innovative, and has reverted to a thin corporate model of state/civil society relations.

Keywords:

• Australia, ‘Big Society’
• civil society
• Liberal party

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rob Manwaring

Rob Manwaring is a Lecturer at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.