Understanding ethics advisory bodies in Australia through a policy advisory systems lens

Outside of bioethics, ethics advice in policy is often poorly defined, yet it plays a crucial role in guiding governments through morally complex policy decisions. This paper draws on PAS typology dimensions as an analytical heuristic to map ethics advisory bodies (EABs) in Australia across several structural and functional dimensions (temporality, government control, expertise, transparency, consensus, and demand–supply) to organize and interpret a largely unmapped domain of expert advice – ethics advice. Using a mixed-methods approach combining documentary analysis and interviews with providers and recipients of ethics advice for governments, the study reveals an ethics advisory landscape driven by definitional ambiguity combined with the absence of a national, institutionalized ethics advisory centre. These factors weaken the visibility and influence of ethics advice in Australia and increase the risk of politicized “shopping” for favourable expertise. The findings highlight the importance of building a better understanding of ethics advice as a form of advisory work that is difficult to capture using formal system categories alone, to support improved policy design and implementation in the future.