Abstract: In the last fifteen years, state and territory governments around Australia have shown a renewed interest in the potential for public land development agencies to support a range of policy imperatives. Three new land agencies have been established and several existing land agencies have had their roles and responsibilities expanded. An emerging role for many has involved a shift in focus away from the production of low-cost land at the urban periphery, towards the co-ordination and delivery of major urban renewal projects. The Victorian land agency this year had its roles and responsibilities re-directed towards the ‘redevelopment of large-scale urban neighbourhoods’ (Victorian Government, 2011: Part 2, 6), while the Urban Land Development Authority in Queensland was established in 2007 with an explicit renewal agenda. Other land agencies have been directed by government to use their land holdings to leverage private sector investment in identified renewal areas, or have otherwise engaged in major renewal projects, often in partnership with state housing authorities. However, while Australia’s land agencies are increasingly engaged in urban renewal activities, there has so far been no theoretical justification for this shift in function, nor any attempt to consider how they might best contribute in this area. In an effort to address this gap, the purpose of this paper is to return to the original rationale for a system of public land ownership and development in the 1970s, and to consider the relevance of that original rationale in the light of contemporary urban renewal objectives; what role could and should Australia’s public land agencies have in facilitating and delivering urban renewal? The first part of the paper discusses the objectives and challenges of urban renewal in Australian cities, and reviews a growing body of literature that problematises the process. Reflecting on the arguments originally used to espouse the establishment of Land Commissions in the mid 1970s, the second part of the paper then explores the opportunities for the involvement of land agencies in renewal projects to address some of these identified challenges, drawing on examples of current practice. The paper concludes by arguing that the land agencies potentially represent an effective instrument for facilitating urban renewal and improving the outcomes of renewal projects, but that their contribution in this area is currently limited by their commercial focus and lack of financial autonomy. The focus throughout the paper is on state-level land agencies with land holdings in Australia’s major cities; the paper does not deal in detail with other similar government bodies that do not own land and/or operate within highly localised areas. The information and ideas presented have been developed from an international review of academic literature on public land agencies and urban renewal, a survey of land agency documents and websites, and semi-structured interviews with staff and board members of state land agencies operating in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria.