The CPD Policy Exchange is a week-long series of public and private events that aim to connect the thinkers and the doers at local, national and international levels to unearth practical, stress tested policy solutions to the most pressing challenges facing Australia and our region.
Building on CPD’s unique Create–Connect–Convince method, the Policy Exchange is a new kind of event program. Recognising that real progress comes from shared understanding and a collective commitment to change, it moves beyond the traditional oration format to prioritise genuine collaboration over one-way dialogue.
From private meetings with policymakers and collaborations with public servants, to roundtables and public forums, the Policy Exchange offers a diverse group of people the chance to engage, question, and contribute to practical solutions that can deliver real progress.
Pressing challenges demand connected responses.
We have seen single-level, siloed thinking fail repeatedly. The most urgent policy challenges facing us are connected – climate change can force migration. Biodiversity loss unleashes diseases. Pandemics foment disinformation – our response must be connected too.
Our solutions need to operate at all levels, with strong connections to the needs of communities, and joined up thinking between business, government and civil society.
The aim is not just to diagnose problems, but to test ideas, identify areas of agreement, and build momentum around practical policy solutions.
Join us.
At the heart of the 2026 Policy Exchange is a simple but important question: What would it take to make Australia the best place to be a child and raise a family?
We are delighted to bring Benjamin Perks to Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney for this inaugural program. A senior leader for the United Nations in New York, a leading global advocate for children and prevention, and author of Trauma Proof, Ben’s lived experience of childhood trauma brings a powerful and distinctive perspective.
The program also features a range of remarkable changemakers:
We’ll explore investing and acting early, building universal systems that respond to people’s needs, and making our institutions and systems places of healing, not punishment.
Across the week we want to show that helping government systems work earlier and work better isn’t just good for children and families, but for communities, the economy and the country as a whole.
This Melbourne event will feature Benjamin Perks, Richard Weston, Georgie Dent and Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis in open conversation with the audience, seeking to answer: What would it take to make Australia the best place to be a child and raise a family?
This Sydney event will feature Benjamin Perks, Sharon Goldfeld AM and Rana Ebrahimi in open conversation with the audience, seeking to answer: What would it take to make Australia the best place to be a child and raise a family?
