Developing Multisectoral Capacity – Water as a Health Issue in Regional Australia

Kearney V¹*

1. Macquarie University, Greenacre, Australia

This paper will present a case study in community development action and public policy reform in water in Northern NSW. It will consider building capacity from a bureaucratic and community perspective. The paper presents work in progress.

The paper also emphasises the need to view complex social and environmental issues such as increasing poverty, regional health and water management, as opportunities to critically examine our attitudes to public policy development and cross jurisdictional government management.

It will consider the cultural transformation required to progress crossborder, cross jurisdictional and cross portfolio management of public policy outcomes of water as a multisectoral issue (TBL)

The research will attempt to identify elements of best practice for community development action and organisational change management strategies, to better manage regional partnerships, bureaucratic functioning and the whole of government approach to sustainable and healthy regional development,
Policy needs to be considered in a new way, with a new attitude – one which ensures decisions support the common good, and acknowledge the interconnectedness of planning issues and policy development. It would seem clear that “the complex interdependency of issues management requires a committed approach to a whole of government public policy development. For the value of the Common Good we need to start to be committed to a view that stresses the interconnectedness of policy choices decisions and reform, both at a micro and macro level. It is time to more effectively join the policy dots!

The case study is being conducted by participant observation in a public policy reform process tools. It examines capacity with a multi disciplinary, multisectoral and cross jurisdictional analysis.