Learning to be a Minister

In 1981, academic Patrick Weller teamed up with renowned political
commentator and journalist Michelle Grattan to publish Can Ministers Cope?
a study of the challenges facing Australia's federal government ministers.

With the federal Labor government just twenty months into its first term in
office, it was time to revisit the question 'Can ministers cope?' and to broaden
the focus to ask how they cope, especially as relatively young and sometimes
inexperienced players, in the transition to government after a long period in
opposition.

Anne Tiernan and Patrick Weller draw on extensive interviews with current and
former ministers, ministerial staffers and senior officials, to discover how a new
ministry learns to juggle their simultaneous roles of member of Parliament and
Cabinet, local constituency representative, and media spokesperson, not to
mention their lives outside work.

Learning to Be a Minister is an in-depth examination of the day-to-day life of
Australia's federal ministers at work.