This book has been concerned with the way in which federal arrangements were reshaped by the efforts of state and Commonwealth governments to implement an economic reform agenda. The initiative launched by Bob Hawke in 1990 carried with it the high hopes of advocates of fundamental federal reform. Federalism was accused of many faults, most of all of retarding economic modernisation. Some federal critics eager to see progress on an agenda of microeconomic reform revived arguments about the frustrations of federalism, bewailing the costs of parochialism. But as, outlined in Chapter 2, there was deep disagreement among the protagonists in federal politics about the priorities for federal reform. Thus, some critics highlighted the costs of centralism rather than parochialism, particularly the centralisation of fiscal power. Looking back, we cannot say federalism was reshaped during this period according to any clearly articulated model set down at the outset. However, if the prospect of wholesale reform became bogged down in familiar federal debates and in struggles over turf, the movement gathered pace towards new federal arrangements through less dramatic means. If answers to some of the big questions could not be found, agreement was reached on many smaller ones through a spate of institution-building in and around the Special Premiers' Conferences and the Council of Australian Governments. Attention moved swiftly from seeing federalism as the problem, to seeing federal institutions as part of the solution. The result was a set of institutions and practices that I have labelled collaborative federalism.