Using evidence in Australia and New Zealand

This chapter examines the growth and the future prospects of evidence-informed approaches to policy making and policy evaluation in Australia and New Zealand. It focuses on an exploration of these concerns at a macro level, examining the rhetoric and actions of government rather than looking more deeply into policy and practice in specific fields of application (for example, healthcare, education and so on). Public leaders and officials in these two countries regularly proclaim their commitment to the use of rigorous evidence in policy decision making and programme review, and so it is worth examining how this rhetoric plays out. But the achievements are uneven and there are many gaps between the rhetoric of evidence utilisation and the realities of policy making (for some of the reasons for this, see the discussion in Chapter Two).