ANZSOG Report 2012 - Australia and New Zealand School of ...

Annual Conference 2012282012 FocusANZSOG’s Annual Conference was held for thefirst time in New Zealand to coincide with thecentenary of the Public Administration Act. Heldat the National Museum of New Zealand, Te PapaTongarewa from 24–26 July, the conference’s themewas Future Proofing the State – Risk, Reponsesand Resilience. The theme looked at the challengesfacing governments in preparing for and respondingto hard-to-predict challenges posed by disaster, bothmanmade and natural.Conference HighlightsThe Conference began strongly with the PrimeMinister of New Zealand, The Rt Hon John Key,presenting the Paterson Oration. Prime Minister Keyset the tone by outlining his government’s four keypriorities: financial management, economic growth,better public services and rebuilding Christchurch.He highlighted the important contribution the publicsector was making to each, and praised the calibreof the advice he had received on difficult publicpolicy issues. “Public management in the foreseeablefuture will be focused on determining which publicservices and income support measures are the mosteffective, and working out how to provide thosewithin a tightly-constrained budget.”Over the following two days, more than 300 delegatesattended thought-provoking keynote presentationsfrom highly regarded international and local speakers,as well as insightful interactive workshops with toppractitioners and industry experts.International keynote speakers included Pierre-AlainSchieb, Counsellor, OECD; Professor Bridget Hutter,London School of Economics and Political Science;Professor Paul ‘t Hart, Utrecht University School ofGovernance, and the Netherlands School of PublicAdministration; Mr Peter Ho, Singapore Centrefor Strategic Futures at Singapore’s Civil ServiceCollege; and Jocelyne Bourgon, former Clerk of thePrivy Council, Canada.Further highlights included Conference Dinnerspeaker Christine Nixon who, as former ChiefCommissioner, Victoria Police and former Chair,Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and RecoveryAuthority, offered a personal perspective oncrisis leadership. This included her honestacknowledgement of how difficult it had been toretain emotional detachment in her role as the voicefor devastated bushfire communities.Then, in what ANZSOG Deputy Dean Peter Allencalled an “elegant and stimulating presentation”,Conference Breakfast speaker David Kirk putforward his own definition of resilience: “A function ofredundancy and optionality”. New Zealand DeputyPrime Minister Bill English delivered the final keynotepresentation, providing further food for thought withhis depiction of the Christchurch earthquake asa “radical experiment of what you do when you areallowed to break the rules”.During the course of the conference the themeweaved its way throughout the workshops andkeynotes in various lights, and brought manydifferent insights into the way governments mustdeal with the challenges of disaster.“The array of heavy duty intellect on display wasawe-inspiring. If future-proofing the state involvesanticipating and preparing for foreseeable challenges,managing risk, building resilience and reducing futurevulnerabilities to prepare for a more sustainabletomorrow, then this conference was a cracker!I thank ANZSOG for putting on the event and formaking me a better practitioner than I was, andI encourage everyone to look at the presentationsand papers.” 2012 Conference delegateThank you to our sponsorsANZSOG would like to again thank the AnnualConference 2012 sponsors for their support:Principal Sponsor CPA Australia, ConferenceProgram Sponsor PricewaterhouseCoopersNew Zealand, Conference Dinner SponsorKPMG Australia, and supporting partners, theNew Zealand Government, Institute of PublicAdministration New Zealand, Institute of PublicAdministration Australia and Victoria UniversityWellington School of Government.A very special thank you to the ANZSOG NewZealand alumni chapter for all its help.