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USC to co-host Public Policy Network conference
Likely changes to public policy following Labor’s Federal election victory in November will be among the hot topics of discussion at the annual national Public Policy Network Conference at Caloundra on Thursday and Friday (31 January-1 February).
The conference at Rydges Oasis Resort will involve nearly 30 leading academics, policy analysts and politicians from around Australia and internationally. It is being co-hosted by the Faculties of Business of the University of the Sunshine Coast and the University of Southern Queensland.
Co-convenors, Dr Scott Prasser from the University of Sunshine Coast and Dr Geoff Cockfield of the University of Southern Queensland, said this would be the best-attended gathering of public policy specialists since the Network’s inception in the early 1990s.
“With the federal election and the change of government just behind us, the conference is very timely,” Dr Prasser said.
“It will explore the policy impacts of this change across a range of areas such federal-state relations, indigenous issues, rural policy, policy advice arrangements, minerals policy and globalisation, and environmental and oceans policy.
“An added difference to the program this year is the inclusion of policy analysts. Among them will be Gary Johns, a former Keating Government minister and now a policy consultant doing interesting work on indigenous policy, and Richard Allsopp from the highly-regarded Institute of Public Affairs.
“It is important that academics mix with other experts and practitioners in the field so that their views can be tested and also to promote some real cross-fertilisations of ideas. Universities should not just be about developing knowledge, but about ensuring it is dispersed and applied to solve real problems.”
This year’s conference involves senior academics from universities such as Melbourne, Flinders, Queensland, QUT, Australian National University, Canberra, Tasmania, Western Australia, Curtin, Southern Queensland, and New South Wales. There also will be academics from Scotland’s Robert Gordon University and New Zealand’s Massey University.
The conference dinner address will be made by The Speaker of the Queensland Parliament, Mike Reynolds, who is a former minister of the Beattie Government, a former mayor of Townsville and an academic.
Dr Prasser said the collaborative efforts of the University of the Sunshine Coast and the University of Southern Queensland in staging this event highlighted what regional universities could achieve through joint efforts.