The aims and strategy of this second edition are essentially the same as the first. However, several changes have been made, a few due to necessity because of the unavailability of recent data, but mainly through our efforts to improve the book and its usefulness. Not only have we tried to update all chapters, but we have often extended and restructured our efforts to try to bring more enlightening information and such analysis.

We have added two new chapters. The first, The search for scoreboards, concentrates on some of the ambitious attempts to produce more encompassing composite indicators. The last chapter, The Howard impact, brings together data and analysis on the comparative performance of the Howard Government.

Some readers of the first edition wanted more graphs as well as tables, while others said they wanted comparisons with other countries as well as the 18 advanced democracies. While the basic format and approach of the book have remained the same, we have accommodated these suggestions to a limited extent. In addition to the 329 tables in the book, there are also now 31 graphs, and while the bulk of the tables still concentrate on the 18 democracies, 19 tables now present global data.

Many of the tables and sections from the first edition which are not included in this edition can be found at the website Australia Policy Online: www.apo.org.au. In addition, that website contains the detailed tabular data behind the graphs in the book, plus some other discussions of our findings.