Under the Australian political system, which is a federation of six States and two Territories known as the Commonwealth of Australia, each State operates within the federation under the Westminster model of government, which assigns ministers the responsibility for ensuring good government. Each State and Territory has a police minister and a police commissioner, with the police minister having oversight of the policies and performance of the police and the police commissioner being responsible for police compliance with and execution of government policies and procedures. Over the past 30 years, police commissioners have regularly disagreed with ministerial directives but have generally lacked the power to prevail in these disputes. This analysis attributes these conflicts to two contradictory relationship models, i.e., the "dependency" model and the "independency" model. The "dependency" model gives the minister overall control of police, and the "independency" model promotes the operational independence of the police commissioner. This paper argues for an "interdependency" model, which is based on a consensus about roles and proper governmental processes that can overcome the difficulties inherent in the "dependency" and "independency" models. This requires the two parties to manage and balance the functions of policy, administration, and operations under a common commitment to responsible government. 4 notes and 29 references