Queer Collaborations (QC) is a national Australian Queer conference. The conference is held annually, usually in July and makes use of the Safer Spaces Agreement. In recent years, the conference has attracted over 200 delegates.
It is often referred to as a student conference, although that is not strictly true. The majority of delegates are students, but the facilitation collectives have not usually restricted registration. The conference has traditionally been supported by the National Union of Students of Australia (NUS) and has used the NUS Standing orders, but officially the conference is autonomous and not affiliated with NUS.
History
The conference began in 1991 as a one-day meeting of students from universities around Sydney. Eventually QC expanded to its current format of a one-week national conference.
A challenge to the conference occurred in 2001 in Newcastle, when a political dispute caused the conference floor to split. Many of the delegates left the conference, and formed their own conference in a bar down the street.
The University of Wollongong were the 2010 hosts, defeating the Cross Campus Queer Network Western Australia 62-60 in the second round of voting after Monash Clayton was eliminated in the first round.
At Wollongong in 2010 the NUS Queer Officers were censured by the conference floor.
At the 2012 conference, it was determined that a collection of Sydney area universities would host the 2013 event. The Sydney universities were chosen over a bid from Brisbane, who had also bid the previous year.
The 2017 Queer Collaborations Conference is to be held at the University of Wollongong in Wollongong.