The rise and fall of the Australian Women's Bureau

Policy textbooks often overlook the importance of international borrowing i n their accounts of the policy process. Analysis of feminist policy influen ce also fends to neglect the international dimension of the opportunity str ucture and the leverage provided by international agendas. In this article we tell the story of how the Women's Bureau, the first women's unit in Aust ralian government, came into being in the 1960s. This story encompasses the oversees modelling of such bureaux and the promotion of such models throug h international women's organisations and their national affiliates. The in ternational dimension has been inseparable from the development of women's policy machinery in Australian government; the current disengagement from i nternational standard setting coincides with the dismantling of domestic ma chinery including the Women's Bureau.