Tom McKenna Memorial Lecture: Victoria's Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability: A Retro Role in Modern Centralised and Highly Controlled Government?

Each year the Planning Institute of Australia (SA Division) presents a major public lecture by a distinguished speaker on a topic of relevance to planning policy and governance. The lecture is named after Tom McKenna, Head of Planning at the South Australian Institute of Technology (now University of South Australia) in the late 1970s.

This year's lecture is being jointly organised with the University of South Australia as part of the University's celebration of the 60th anniversary of its establishment of Australia's first planning program in 1949.

This year's Tom McKenna lecturer is Dr Ian McPhail. Dr McPhail recently retired after five and a half years as Victoria's inaugural Commissioner of Environmental Sustainability. Prior to that he had experience as CEO of a number of major planning and environmental agencies and organisations.

In his lecture Dr McPhail will reflect on his period as Commissioner and asks a number of questions, including: Has the role made any significant difference? Is there measurable behaviour change in government? What are the stresses of a statutory officer acting in a public way within present day centralised and highly controlled government? Is a loose cannon tolerable in these days of careful management of public releases and announcements by governments? And how does an advocate for sustainable natural resource management make a case in a period of economic downturn with investment, growth and employment priorities far outweighing environmental and resource management priorities?

For more information visit: http://www.planning.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=68&Itemid=61