The Council of Australian Governments and Intergovernmental Relations: A Case of Cooperative Federalism

Abstract

A series of Special Premiers' Conferences begun in 1990, and the establishment of the Council of Australian Governments in 1992, signaled a phase of “cooperative federalism” in Australia. Joint schemes of policy and legislation and new national intergovernmental bodies were made by a series of formal agreements. The conditions and circumstances are appraised in a discussion of the nature of intergovernmental coordination and cooperation, and from the critical perspective of a model of competitive federalism. It is concluded that the initiatives, largely, did not represent a centralizing process, nor did they override strongly articulated claims for diversity. This is made clear following an analysis of the processes occurring in the newly established federal institutions and from a series of brief case studies. They expressed the continuing interdependency and underlying autonomy of state and Commonwealth governments through schemes that promised to bring agreed, joint benefits through federal solutions.