The 2014 Australian presidency took place against the backdrop of multiple challenges in both global economy and international politics, with Ukrainian crisis, Syrian conflict, Islamic State, and Ebola. Thus, despite being an economic forum, the G20 could not avoid addressing these issues, with discussions taking place during the bilateral meetings and on the sidelines of the forum.The article attempts to analyze the Australian G20 Presidency within a functional paradigm, assessing G20 performance on the three main objectives of plurilateral summitry institutions: strengthening capacity for political leadership to launch new ideas and overcome deadlocks; reconciling domestic and international pressures; and consolidating collective management.The analysis revealed that, despite a number of setbacks, the 2014 Australian presidency managed to steer the G20 members’ cooperation on the four major pillars of the institution’s agenda, reflecting a consistently high level of the G20 commitment to fulfilling its key mission of ensuring strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. The research was carried out with financial support of Russian Humanities Research Foundation within the framework of a research project “Elaborating a Supply – Demand Model to Balance External Demand and National Priorities in the Presidency Proposals for Agenda in G20, G8 and BRICS”, project №12-03-00563.