About the Conference
With a new Federal government in Australia keen to drive the COAG reform agenda and several historic COAG meetings
in one year, the need to achieve more effective partnerships at a Commonwealth-State level in particular and relations between
all tiers of government in general has never been more pronounced.
As the COAG working groups proceed with the detailed processes of coordinating service delivery in fields
as diverse as education and irrigation, ANZSOG's conference will take a longer-term but still very practical view of
the challenges and strategies of effective federalism.
The conference will confront the following important challenges, and over two days seek to propose workable
strategies for achievable outcomes:
- What are the current and foreseeable political agendas – what do the political executives around Australia
wish to see achieved? How can we distil these into reform agendas?
- How do we work within a political federation to enable it to reach its full potential?
- How will the broader agendas for effective federalism impact at the functional level or policy sectoral level?
- What new structures and institutions are required to deliver a meaningful cooperative federalism?
- How do we build political support into reform proposals, and which structural/institutional problems
can we effectively address?
- How do we improve horizontal relations (e.g., State-to-State) and integration to meet policy needs more effectively?
- How can we improve outcomes for citizens while reconciled to sovereign powers and jurisdictional traditions?
- How do we build a 'bottom-up' enthusiasm for change and integration, in which the ownership of local stakeholders
is respected and enhanced?
- What are the possibilities for social compacts, new partnerships and national policy frameworks, and how might
they work in practice?
- What are the next steps forward, and how are we going to initiate them?
As usual with our annual conference there will be a mixture of senior public servants, politicians and
academics speaking. However, due to the exceptionally high levels of interest and involvement by governments in the topic,
this year's conference will see a greater role played by leading politicians.
The conference format will feature:
- Six keynote speeches from outstanding leaders;
- Eight thought-provoking opening presentations to each of the major streams;
- Within each stream, panel sessions to allow for the ‘nitty-gritty’ to be discussed with the audience.
Download brochure
Register Now
