Contains an overview of the Ideas Exchange Project from its outset when an idea about an essay competition was first proposed with the theme of What Sort of Society Do You Want Australia to Be? (Spring 1995), the Project's launch by Prof. Alistair Davidson (Monash University, Politics Dept.) in March 1996, to its culmination in August 1996 with the Ideas Exchange Day seminar which drew about 150 participants from all over Victoria.