In 1981, Patrick Weller teamed up with renowned political commentator and journalist Michelle Grattan to publish Can Ministers Cope?, a study of the challenges facing Australia's federal government ministers. With the federal Labor government just 20 months into its first term in office, it was time to revisit the question 'Can ministers cope?' and to broaden the focus to ask how they cope, especially as relatively young and sometimes inexperienced players, in the transition to government after a long period in opposition. Anne Tiernan and Patrick Weller draw on extensive interviews with current and former ministers, ministerial staffers and senior officials, to discover how a new ministry learns to juggle their simultaneous roles of member of Parliament and Cabinet, local constituency representative, and media spokesperson, not to mention their lives outside work. Learning to Be a Minister is an in-depth examination of the day-to-day life of Australia's federal ministers at work.