ABSTRACT
The 'Razor Gang' attracted considerable attention but was perhaps more significant in its long-term influence on government agendas rather than its immediate cuts to the bottom line. The seven years of the Fraser government (1975-83) were marked by a desire to impose expenditure control on the public sector. The Fraser paradox signifies that even extensive formal controls can produce very differing results year to year as the exigencies of political office change. Government expenditure and the supply of resources to spending departments was a fundamental responsibility of Treasury up to 1976. Splitting Treasury into two organisations was a relatively straightforward exercise because the old department had identifiable divisions which largely fell into one camp or the other. From its inauspicious beginning the Department of Finance inherited many customary practices and traditional 'line-item' control orientations from the former Treasury. The latitude for spending departments to shift their costs to future years similarly became more restricted.
