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There has been a recent trend in the literature on committees in Westminster parliaments to evaluate their performance through their impact on different groups such as the government, media and the parliament. This paper uses this literature to develop a

Committees in the Australian parliament often make recommendations to government and attempt to persuade the government to accept them. Using a sample of committee reports tabled between the 2001 and 2004 elections, this paper measures the government acceptance of committee recommendations as a proxy for committees' influence. On average, the government stated it accepted three majority recommendations out of 11 per report, although this figure drops to two and a half when viewed as recommendations implemented and not merely promised. The government accepted virtually no minority recommendations. The most important report characteristic is the extent to which it affects the government's reputation, but the breadth of political support that it can muster is also relevant.

There has been a recent trend in the literature on committees in Westminster parliaments to evaluate their performance through their impact on different groups such as the government, media and the parliament. This paper uses this literature to develop a

Committees in the Australian parliament often make recommendations to government and attempt to persuade the government to accept them. Using a sample of committee reports tabled between the 2001 and 2004 elections, this paper measures the government acceptance of committee recommendations as a proxy for committees' influence. On average, the government stated it accepted three majority recommendations out of 11 per report, although this figure drops to two and a half when viewed as recommendations implemented and not merely promised. The government accepted virtually no minority recommendations. The most important report characteristic is the extent to which it affects the government's reputation, but the breadth of political support that it can muster is also relevant.

In examining recruitment and retention of teachers in rural areas, David Monk begins by noting the numerous possible characteristics of rural communities—small size, sparse settlement, distance from population concentrations, and an economic reliance on agricultural industries that are increasingly using seasonal and immigrant workers to minimize labor costs. Many, though not all, rural areas, he says, are seriously impoverished. Classes in rural schools are relatively small, and teachers tend to report satisfaction with their work environments and relatively few problems with discipline. But teacher turnover is often high, and hiring can be difficult. Monk observes that rural schools have a below-average share of highly trained teachers. Compensation in rural schools tends to be low, perhaps because of a lower fiscal capacity in rural areas, thus complicating efforts to attract and retain teachers. Several student characteristics, including relatively large shares of students with special needs and with limited English skills and lower shares of students attending college, can also make it difficult to recruit and retain high-quality teachers. Other challenges include meeting the needs of highly mobile children of low-income migrant farm workers. With respect to public policy, Monk asserts a need to focus on a subcategory of what might be called hard-to-staff rural schools rather than to develop a blanket set of policies for all rural schools. In particular, he recommends a focus on such indicators as low teacher qualifications, teaching in fields far removed from the area of training, difficulty in hiring, high turnover, a lack of diversity among teachers in the school, and the presence of migrant farm workers' children. Successful efforts to stimulate economic growth in these areas would be highly beneficial. He also calls attention to the potential for modern telecommunication and computing technologies to offset some of the drawbacks associated with teaching in rural areas.