Australia’s Oceans Agenda: Historical influences, current developments, and future directions

Effective ocean governance in Australia is a complex undertaking. Australia's federalism shapes marine governance by splitting responsibility between the Commonwealth and the States. This jurisdictional divide is mediated by the Offshore Constitutional Settlement (OCS), a legal framework that has defined marine resource management since its enactment in the early 1980s. To date, this framework and its policy impacts remains the basis of much sectoral and fragmented decision-making. Despite these challenges, approaches such as Australia’s Oceans Policy (AOP) and the recently developed Sustainable Ocean Plan (SOP). attempt holistic, integrated and coordinated approaches to ocean governance. This paper examines the legal framework underpinning Australian ocean governance, and how the OCS-driven sectoral basis has created governance silos leading to fragmented approaches to issues of climate change, biodiversity conservation, and blue economy development. It argues that despite these difficulties created by the OCS, emerging integrated and coordinated approaches such as the SOP can work with these legal and institutional constraints to ensure stability, longevity and sustainability in ocean governance in Australia.