Coming to terms with the state

It is an honour to be asked to contribute to this festschrift for Professor John Wanna. His distinguished career spans almost 40 years and I am pleased to be able to say that I was there more or less at the beginning, circa 1981, when John and I met as postgraduate students at the University of Adelaide and became firm friends. Since that time, John has produced an enormous body of work that has contributed greatly to our understanding of Australian politics and public policy. He has nurtured and mentored many young scholars launching them into careers of their own. By any measure his contributions to the study of public policy and the profession of political science have been substantial. The diversity of his work, and its depth, is such that I find myself somewhat daunted by the prospect of saying something beyond the obvious about its significance.