Against claims that public sector reforms have made the functions of managers similar to those in private firms, critics of the managerialist model point to constraints on public sector managers that make their decisions on resource allocation and policy development different from those affecting corporations. Through an examination of policy formulation, program management and decision‐making in the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, this article demonstrates that managerialist program planning, outcome orientation and performance measurement have been introduced, but that this has not precluded an expansion in non‐market oriented routine, non‐discretionary decision‐making involving bureaucratic legal rationality within a legislative and regulatory framework. While some clients have been defined and assessed in terms of economic criteria, they access departmental processing not in terms of market signals, but according to their compliance with the Migration Act and Migration Regulations. Managerialism has not occurred at the expense of classical administrative practices, rather managerialist and legal bureaucratic forms have both grown and influenced political calculations on policy