Policy capacity in oceans governance: Rio+20 and Australia’s outcomes

ABSTRACT

Oceans were a key theme of the Rio+20 Conference in 2012 and the importance of conservation and sustainable use of the oceans was reinforced by the UN member states. This paper examines Australia’s policy capacity to develop and implement oceans policies in the context of its history of responses to key commitments to international forums, such as United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Our analysis highlights that governments such as Australia are now consciously making policies in oceans governance that they know they have the capacity to deliver. We conclude that Australian oceans governance has been constrained by this tendency towards focusing on relatively ‘safe’ areas of policy development, and that deeper more radical engagement is needed in order to build policy capacity so that Australia again becomes globally recognised as a leading nation in policy innovation in oceans governance.

Notes on contributors

Joanna Vince is a Senior Lecturer specialising in oceans governance and public policy in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia.

Melissa Nursey-Bray is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Population, School of Social Science, Faculty of Arts, University of Adelaide. She teaches and undertakes research in marine, fisheries and Indigenous governance.

Notes

1. In the lead up to United Nations (UNCED) (1992) the Labor government led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke was instrumental in the development of the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment (IGAE), that outlined the arrangements and responsibilities for all Australian states and Commonwealth governments with regard to the environment. Leadership struggles within the Labor party resulted in a new Labor government led by Prime Minister Paul Keating who did not attend UNCED and distanced himself from environmental issues that were the focus of his predecessor. Despite this, his government enacted the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development that complemented the IGAE and was also supported by all levels of government. Australia's Oceans Policy was a Keating government initiative but Keating was defeated in the 1996 by the Liberal/National party coalition (see Haward and Vince 2009). The new government, led by Prime Minister John Howard, continued with the development and implementation of the oceans policy.