Strengthening Evidence-based Policy in the Australian Federation: Roundtable Proceedings: Volume 1: Canberra, 17-18 August 2009

This annual Roundtable has a special place among the Commission’s many activities.
• it provides an opportunity for us to step outside our project work and focus collectively on what we see as a key policy issue or theme;
• in a setting which allows for frank discussion among a cross-section of influential people;
• affording ‘time out’ that will hopefully benefit all of us back on the job and, ultimately, promote the cause of good public policy — our principal objective.
As with past Roundtables, we have been very fortunate in our final list of attendees
— including our keynote speakers from overseas, Ron Haskins from the Brookings Institution and Jeff Smith from the University of Michigan. The senior ranks of public service, both at the Commonwealth and State level, are well represented here, as are academia, private research and consultancy organisations.
The topic for this year’s Roundtable seemed almost to choose itself. In a well- publicised address early last year to senior public servants, some months after coming to power, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: ‘evidence-based policy making is at the heart of being a reformist government’. Other Ministers in the new government echoed similar sentiments, foreshadowing a change in policy-making that was widely welcomed, particularly in Canberra.