ABSTRACT
This chapter relates emerging patterns to institutional transitions that have given licence to particular forms of leadership behaviour. It illuminates the circumstances that allow a leader to go too far. In October 2001, as a federal election campaign was about to commence, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, his Minister for Defence, Peter Reith, and subsequently other senior ministers gave out a disturbing story. As for the ministers and the prime minister, they simply reiterated ‘we acted on advice.’ As to the seriousness of the offences, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of the Defence Department said they had been made aware in April. In Westminster systems, the reliance on collective (cabinet) authority rather than prime ministerial power; the distinction between partisan objectives and public service advice; the system of accountability, vested in ministerial responsibility, all contribute to the same end.
