Framing Australian Antarctic policy: the 20-year Antarctic plan and beyond

Climate change and new patterns of human use are bringing new governance challenges to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Over the past two years, the Australian Government has carried out a major review of Antarctic policy and released the Australian Antarctic Strategy and 20 Year Action Plan. It is therefore both a timely and opportune moment to take stock of policy debates surrounding Australian policy on the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean. Using interpretative policy analysis, we examine documents contributing to the formulation of the Australian Antarctic Strategy and 20 Year Action Plan. From this material, we identify four dominant frames in recent policy discourse regarding Australian Antarctic policy: (i) ‘protecting Australia’s national interest’, (ii) ‘protecting and/or using resources of the Southern Ocean’, (iii) ‘leading international cooperation’ and (iv) ‘leading scientific research’. Our analysis indicates there is significant plurality of frames used by stakeholders of Australian Antarctic policy. Our analysis also identifies a common thread of ‘bifocalism’ across these four frames which seeks to reconcile Australian territorial claims with the internationalism required for furthering the Antarctic Treaty System.