Andrew Leigh

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, DRIVE WITH GEORGIA STYNES
WEDNESDAY, 13 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: ACT Economic Reform Roundtable, national Economic Reform Roundtable, ANU

GEORGIA STYNES: I need to go now to Dr Andrew Leigh, who has been waiting very patiently. He’s the Federal Member for Fenner and the Assistant Minister for Productivity. Why are we talking about productivity? Because 27 local groups were invited today to meet, including local charities, to talk about productivity here in the ACT, and he joins me. Good evening.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Good evening Georgia, great to be with you.

GEORGIA STYNES: Yeah, great to be with you too. Tell me what happened today? What struck you today with the meeting?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I was really impressed by the collaborative spirit that the attendees brought to the conversation. Alicia Payne, Dave Smith, Katy Gallagher and I got together a range of organisations across the business community, social sector, higher education, in order to talk about how we get more output and less burnout. We're not aiming to try and make people work harder; it's about getting smarter outcomes. And you know, one way of thinking about productivity Georgia, is it's a bit like if the economy was a bicycle - productivity is the oil on the chain. So, we had a whole lot of specific ideas that came forward. Things around computing infrastructure, building more housing, ensuring that we're better joining up university and vocational sectors and avoiding some of the unnecessary regulatory overlap with other jurisdictions.

GEORGIA STYNES: I understand the PM said there's low-hanging fruit. Is that what he's referring to, that could be acted on quickly?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look, absolutely. And one of our attendees made the point that just as the ACT was the first whole jurisdiction to roll-out the National Disability Insurance Scheme, so too we could be a testing ground for other new ideas - building on our strengths in innovation and the care economy and quality of life. Now, we're a smart city with a lot of big ideas and that was really on display today with the constructive conversation that we had.

GEORGIA STYNES: We're also a city that is growing rapidly, and you've also got obviously this national focus here as well. You heard there, probably the interview before. Thank you for waiting so patiently too. But there's a pressure on development, there's a pressure on here in Canberra, how to grow but not leave people behind. Do you see that though, in your role?

ANDREW LEIGH: Absolutely, and I know every time I chat to the ACT Government about things like their missing middle plan - their desire to see houses built more quickly. We know we need to bring to these conversations an environment lens, an agenda lens, they are things that are so important to the values of Canberrans. And we also need to make sure that we're encouraging the right levels of tourism to Australia, particularly where that's students coming to make their very first visit to the ACT which sets them on a lifelong path of recognising how great it is to have a national capital with all our wonderful national cultural institutions.

GEORGIA STYNES: Just very quickly though, because we're coming up to news. What is one specific outcome that you'll take to the National Roundtable?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I think one thing that I'll take forward is the importance of getting good transport networks, the importance of having a connectivity to other cities and the challenge that we're having with flight cancellations and the cost of flying here to the ACT.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

OPINION PIECE

When the empirical strikes back

Published in The Canberra Times

11 August 2025

When a German bakery chain wanted to boost sales, it didn’t hire consultants or launch a splashy rebrand. Instead, it did something more radical: it ran a randomised trial. Half its stores offered staff a modest group bonus. The other half didn’t. After a few months, the results were in: a 3 per cent sales increase in the bonus group. For every dollar spent on bonuses, the company reaped $3.80 in revenue and $2.10 in operational profit.

It’s a reminder that in business – and in government – the most powerful tool may not be charisma or instinct, but curiosity. Randomised trials help us figure out not just what sounds good, but what actually works.

In Australia’s public service, that ethos is taking root. We’re seeing an emerging culture of testing and learning: through small-scale trials, behavioural nudges, and rigorous evaluation. From tax compliance letters to SMS reminders, government is using evidence to improve how it delivers. Not by guessing. By learning.

Public sector productivity isn’t about profit margins. It’s about outcomes that matter: fewer people stuck in long-term unemployment, shorter hospital wait times, better school completion rates. And improving those outcomes begins with one key question: what works?

Randomised trials give us answers. They compare two versions of a program – one with a new tweak, one without – and show whether the tweak made a difference. A redesigned letter. A new prompt. A brief coaching call. Some ideas turn out to be duds. Others change everything.

Take Services Australia. In one trial, the department sent a simple confirmation text message to people who’d submitted a form. Just a short note effectively saying “we’ve got it”. That tiny tweak cut follow-up calls by 11 percentage points, saving time for both staff and callers. Another trial found that a well-worded SMS reminder to income support recipients boosted on-time earnings reporting by 13 percentage points and cut payment suspensions nearly in half. The message saved 6000 hours of staff time a year.

The Tax Office tried something similar. Letters to tax agents that gently flagged possible over-claiming of work-related deductions resulted in average claims falling by $191 per taxpayer. Across the sample, that meant more than $2 million in reduced deductions.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

Open Trade: Australia’s Strength

ASIALINK LEADERS SUMMIT 
CANBERRA 

FRIDAY, 8 AUGUST 2025

I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal People, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet, and extend that respect to all First Nations people here today.

It’s terrific to be back at Asialink talking about openness. Asialink is passionate about making the most of opportunities in Asia. It’s an ambition the government shares as we implement our Southeast Asia Economic Strategy (Moore 2023). People-to-people links are a valuable part of that strategy. So it’s fantastic to have initiatives like Asialink leading the way for the past 30 years (Asialink 2025).

There has been significant change over the past year. The global rules-based economic system that has underpinned decades of relative prosperity and stability for Australia is under strain. Intensifying strategic competition between our most important trading partner and most important security ally, regional conflicts and weakening multilateral institutions are all contributing to a more fragmented and less resilient world.

We’re eleven days out from the Economic Reform Roundtable. Building economic resilience in the face of rising fragmentation and global uncertainty will be a key theme. In this context, and in the face of increasingly frequent global shocks, we must ensure our economy’s ability to withstand, adapt and recover. It’s something that’s crucial to expanding your horizons. As the Treasurer has said, it goes to securing investment capital, shoring up supply chains and building more partnerships in our region (Chalmers 2025).

In other words, we’re seeking ideas and proposals on opening doors not closing them. And today I want to talk about the benefits of open trade, the ways economic engagement has helped Australia prosper, and the reasons why tariffs are not the answer. 

Doing what we do best

Nobel laureate and economist Paul Samuelson described free trade as the best example of an economic policy that might not be obviously beneficial, but is demonstrably welfare enhancing (Samuelson 1948,). Plenty of smart people don’t immediately see the case for open trade.

Trade is most beneficial when it leverages our comparative advantage. Most of us don’t cut our own hair, sew our own suits or cobble our own shoes – which is a relief, since in my own case, I’d end up looking like Mr Bean on laundry day. Thanks to specialisation in the labour market, we do what we do best. Then, we pay others to do what they do best.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO MELBOURNE, DRIVE WITH ALI MOORE

THURSDAY, 7 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: Economic Roundtable in Melbourne, Labor’s productivity agenda, GST, Economic Reform Roundtable in Canberra, Productivity Commission, Artificial intelligence

ALI MOORE: Ahead of the Roundtable, 25 economic experts have been talking options to boost productivity in Melbourne today, and the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh was there. Andrew welcome.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks so much Ali, great to be with you.

ALI MOORE: I had a look at the list of people who were part of this roundtable. It is very, very long. Did you actually manage to come to any conclusions with so many people in the room?

ANDREW LEIGH: Yes. We had a wonderful range of people. Obviously local experts from the University of Melbourne, Victoria University, Monash and we had thinktanks like the Grattan Institute, e61 and the Superpower Institute. There was a strong consensus around the idea of not making things worse - an emphasis the government should, first of all, do no harm. And then also…

ALI MOORE: You don’t need a roundtable to tell you that surely?
ANDREW LEIGH: No, but it never hurts to be reminded Ali. And just a big emphasis on the dynamism of the Australian economy - that we can boost productivity by making individuals more productive, by encouraging individuals to move to more productive firms, and by encouraging the growth of more productive firms. And so that for me is a really useful framework. An emphasis on making sure that those reallocation processes are working as well as possible, and on ensuring that our tax system is absolutely fit for the 21st Century, and we're making the most of artificial intelligence.

ALI MOORE: So, let's go to tax first then. This proposal that's being put on the table – Allegra Spender is one of those very much behind it. We've spoken to her previously about it. Raise the GST to 15 per cent, but give a cash rebate of $3,300 as compensation which would sort of essentially erase the impact of the higher GST on the first - I think they say 22,000 of annual purchases. So, that would really help lower-and-middle income earners, but 15 per cent would put a lot more money in your coffers. What do you reckon about increasing the GST?

ANDREW LEIGH: I like Richard Holden. He wasn't able to make it today, although he was one of the invitees. No one else raised that particular proposal…

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

The Heads We Know, the Tales We Didn’t

Launching ‘Heads and Tales’ by Granville Allen Mawer

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN MINT

CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 6 AUGUST 2025

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands we meet today, and pay respects to all First Nations people present. My thanks to the Mint’s Acting CEO Emily Martin for hosting us today.

When I first began reading Heads and Tales, I was expecting a survey of coinage. Informative, perhaps even a little weighty. What I found instead was a book that is witty, elegant and delightfully idiosyncratic. A book that wears its learning lightly but never slouches. A book about coins, yes – but also about characters, chaos and the curious things we choose to commemorate in metal. A book with proof-quality scholarship and circulation-level charm.

Granville Allen Mawer has taken a subject that might have seemed numismatic in the narrowest sense, and given us something broader, richer and more alive. He reminds us that coins are not just currency. They are miniature monuments. They tell stories of empires and impostors, of saints and scoundrels, of innovation, inflation and, occasionally, elephants.

Take Themistocles, the Athenian general who helped see off the Persians at Salamis. After being exiled by the Athenians, who had a habit of discarding their heroes once they'd outlived their usefulness, Themistocles ended up governing a Persian satrapy. There, he did something extraordinary: he put his own head on the local coinage. According to Mawer, that is the earliest known example of a human being portrayed on a coin. It’s a fitting tribute for a man who had been both lionised and exiled – a face with a story on both sides.

This is one of the many joys of Heads and Tales. It doesn’t just list coins. It animates them. Each coin becomes a vignette: a parable of power, persuasion or sheer peculiarity. We meet a she-wolf suckling twins, a bronze dagger pretending to be money, an elephant in battle formation, and an emperor whose portrait on a coin tried to claim divine status, while everyone around him quietly rolled their eyes.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC RADIO CANBERRA, BREAKFAST WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO
TUESDAY, 5 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: Canberra Trail 100 ultramarathon, Economic Reform Roundtable

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Time to talk federal politics. Well, we’re not actually going to talk much federal politics this morning with the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, and Member for Fenner Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Stephen, great to be with you.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: You're going to disagree with this. I think running is undignified, but you obviously enjoy it. And you went, you decided to run some stupid amount of distance on your birthday?

ANDREW LEIGH: Yes, it was my birthday on Sunday.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Happy birthday by the way!

ANDREW LEIGH: Thank you very much. As luck would have it, the Sri Chinmoy Canberra Trail 100 was also scheduled on that day, so I signed up again to run 100 kilometres up and down Canberra’s mountains. In politics we're used to long campaigns, uphill battles and occasional mudslinging, and Canberra’s trails provided just that.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I was thinking about this when I saw your social media post on the weekend. I thought, who was the person that went out and worked out how many hills there are in Canberra before you started running?

ANDREW LEIGH: There's some remarkable people involved in the team. Big shout out to Prachar Stegemann and the team who walked through and tied little bits of pink tape on the trails and took them all down afterwards. A huge volunteer effort. And every time you come into the aid stations, there's a whole lot of people working hard there. Canberra’s local sports really thrive off volunteers, as you see every weekend.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Is there a competitive edge to this? Or are you competing against yourself?

ANDREW LEIGH: When you get to an ultramarathon, you're not really worried about your place. You're more worried about whether you finish. It generates a lovely sort of camaraderie on the trails. You're always checking in on other people, making sure they got what they need, offering them a gel if they need one and looking after those who seem to be struggling. So yeah, it's a lovely, friendly aspect to it. Much more participation than competition.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: So how long did it take you?

ANDREW LEIGH: Took me 12 hours and 43 minutes. It’s a little bit quicker than last year, but a little bit slower than the year before that.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
MONDAY, 4 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: Labor’s productivity agenda, Economic Reform Roundtable, Productivity Commission recommendations on company tax, ACTU recommendations on housing, the safeguard mechanism, working from home and productivity

PATRICIA KARVELAS: For the government's view, I want to bring in the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition and Charities, Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, welcome.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks, Patricia. Great to be with you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: So, a lot of ideas around. I want to start with the Productivity Commission's ideas around company tax. Business, they're not great fans of it. They put out a joint statement last week saying that this idea of increasing taxes for the 500 top companies was unacceptable and it should be about lowering taxes. Is it dead on arrival?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well Patricia, as you wrote this morning it's important that we ‘ventilate big and radical ideas’. There is an appetite in the community for boosting productivity. As someone who's been a productivity nerd for decades, I'm enormously excited by the fact that this productivity conversation is happening, and that the Economic Reform Roundtable will be the focus for important ideas that will potentially boost our productivity growth rate for decades to come. We've encouraged people to bring their biggest ideas to the roundtable, and we're not going to engage in a kind of rule-in-rule out game in the lead‑up.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Oh yeah. Look, I'm not asking you to rule it out, I'm just asking you to engage in perhaps the idea itself. Do you think it's an idea ‑ you're somebody ‑ you're an economist, you see what they're doing here; do you think the idea has merit of actually, you know, radically reducing the tax for a lot of businesses and then increasing it for these top 500?

ANDREW LEIGH: I think you can't talk about productivity without having the tax conversation. Whether this specific idea is the right one or not will be a focus for the productivity roundtable. But I really welcome the fact that people are looking to engage in ideas that aren't just tweaks, but big generational reforms, reforms that future generations will look back to and say, ‘thank you for putting Australia on a better reform path’.

I find it pretty disappointing that the Coalition's engaging in this fearmongering. After all, Sussan Ley is part of a party that went to the last election promising to raise income taxes on every Australian taxpayer. So, running scare campaigns in advance of the Economic Reform Roundtable really ought to be beneath the Coalition.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, I think their view is that there shouldn't be a net increase in tax, and that some of these ideas would lead to that. What's your view on that?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, look at what we did in the last term. We put in place important multinational tax reforms to ensure that multinationals paid their fair share, and we cut income taxes for every Australian taxpayer. That's our record, and they're the sorts of principles that will guide us as we go forward to try and boost the productivity speed limit of the economy through reforms that invest in individuals, in infrastructure and in institutions.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And that idea is just one of many. There's also the ACTU's ideas, many ideas there, but one of them, of course, to revisit negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. Do you think those need to be debated again?

ANDREW LEIGH: I really appreciated the point that Sally McManus made, which is that it's vital that we have a housing system which ensures that essential workers can live near where they work. The Albanese Labor Government is focused on a series of supply side housing reforms, some of the biggest investment from the Commonwealth standpoint in housing but also working with States and Territories to undo the thicket of regulations that slowed down housing approvals. Clare O'Neil has been very focused on the ambitious 1.2 million home target, and predominantly our focus there has been on supply-side measures.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE CANBERRA
THURSDAY, 31 JULY 2025

SUBJECTS: Inflation, Labor’s productivity agenda, Economic Reform Roundtable

ANDREW LEIGH: Well good morning, and thanks very much for coming out. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Well, if we look around the world we see countries where inflation is rising. In the UK and US, inflation has recently been going up. While inflation is going north in the UK and US, it's going south in Australia.

We've just seen the latest inflation figure, 2.1%, near the bottom the Reserve Bank's target band. That's thanks to the careful measures that Australians have put in place over recent years, working with the Albanese Government. We've been a government that's prioritised getting inflation down without smashing jobs. It's important to recognise that this is unique in Australian history. The story of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s is that in order to get inflation under control, a whole bunch of Australians lost their jobs. That hasn't been the case this time.

We’ve got unemployment still low by historic standards. Our government has produced the best unemployment figures of any government in the past half century. So, to have unemployment in the low fours, inflation in the low twos really is a remarkable success for Australians, who have now seen three years of continuous economic growth.

And as we've dealt with those cyclical challenges, we've moved down to the structural issues in the economy. Getting productivity moving again is a priority for our government. The decade ending in 2020 was the worst productivity decade in the post-war era. We’re bringing together a group of people in the Cabinet rooms, led by Treasurer Jim Chalmers for an Economic Reform Roundtable from the 19^th to the 21^st of August.

Productivity is not a switch we can flip, but we know that there's a serious to-do list: competition reforms, clean energy, investing in education, getting infrastructure right. All of those topics and more will be part of the discussion in the Cabinet rooms. And in the lead-up to that discussion, I'll be part of a range of roundtables which are looking at particular sectors, including the charity sector. This is vital as we work together to find the solutions to Australia's productivity challenges. Building on the work of the last term, the historic merger reforms, national competition policy, setting Net Zero targets and investing in education through measures such as free TAFE. The Albanese Government has looked to tackle inflation while keeping unemployment low. And now, we're looking to tackle productivity while ensuring that we have the gains from growth equitably shared across the population.

Thanks very much.

ENDS

Using Data to Improve Productivity

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Policy Roundtable on ‘Unlocking Value: Better Use of Integrated Government Data for Evidence-Based Policy’

Online Address

WEDNESDAY, 30 JULY 2025

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the lands we are meeting on today.

Apologies in advance that parliament is sitting today. I’m afraid that parliamentary pairs are as scarce as a dataset with no missing values and perfect documentation.

And yes, it’s ironic that we are discussing how to connect datasets across governments when I cannot even pop down the hill to connect physically.

My thanks to Philip Clarke and the Academy of Social Sciences for organising this roundtable, and to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and David Gruen for their leadership in integrated government data. I’m sure this roundtable will help by bringing together researchers and policymakers to accelerate our ability to share and use data responsibly.

ABS Integrated Data Assets – BLADE and PLIDA

Let’s start with the heavyweights. As you probably just heard from Dr Gruen, the Australian Bureau of Statistics hosts two of the country’s largest integrated data assets: the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE) and the Person‑Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA).

BLADE combines around 29 datasets - including surveys of business characteristics, business income and tax records, trade and intellectual property data, insolvency information and employment conditions - and spans the period from 2001 to the present.

PLIDA integrates about 30 datasets from 2006 onwards, linking Census data to tax returns, social security payments, migration records and information on health, education and disability.

Both assets are longitudinal and expand as new datasets are added for emerging policy questions. By providing a single source of de‑identified unit‑record data on businesses and people, these assets enable analysts to study how firms perform over time and how individuals’ characteristics, service use and outcomes interrelate (Gruen 2024).

Now, let’s me turn to discuss how integrated data is boosting productivity, drawing on examples from the federal government, state government and private sector.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

Fair Governance in Fast Times

AUSTRALIAN CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS COMMISSION GOVERNING FOR GOOD FORUM 2025

ONLINE ADDRESS

WEDNESDAY, 30 JULY 2025

I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country across the many lands from which this forum is being recorded and attended. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all First Nations people joining us today.

It’s a pleasure to join you virtually for this important gathering. I’m grateful to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission for convening the Governing for Good Forum, and to everyone here – charity leaders, board members, advisers, regulators, and advocates – for the work you do to ensure our not-for-profit sector remains strong, trusted, and future-ready. I also want to acknowledge the leadership of the ACNC: Commissioner Sue Woodward AM and her assistant commissioners, Natasha Sekulic and Cate Bennett. Supporting them is the Advisory Board, chaired by Sarah Davies AM with Sara Harrup as Deputy Chair. The Board also includes General Members Myles McGregor‑Lowndes OAM, Ian Hamm, Anna Bacik, David Crosbie, Rosa Loria, Nick Maisey, and ex officio members from the states and territories. With this depth of expertise, the ACNC is exceptionally well placed to guide Australia’s charity sector through these complex times.

In a country where one in ten workers is employed in a charity, and millions volunteer, the governance of not-for-profits is not a side conversation. It’s a national concern. Governance is what connects trust to impact. It’s how the sector earns its legitimacy, defends its independence, and drives change.

This forum comes at a critical moment – not just for charities, but for the nation. Australia is in a period of social and economic transformation. From artificial intelligence to fiscal constraint, from shifting demographics to climate shocks, the operating environment is changing fast. The pressures are real, but so too is the opportunity to shape a more inclusive, resilient and connected economy.

Charities will feel these changes. But they will also help lead the response.

That’s why this forum matters. It brings together the people who govern our sector with those who regulate and support it. And it does so with a shared purpose: to ensure that governance is not just about avoiding failure, but enabling success.

Working in the charity sector means you need to be fluent in acronyms, fundraising platforms, and the mystical art of writing a mission statement that fits on a mug.

Wombot and the Frontline of Innovation

At the Infoxchange Technology for Social Justice Conference earlier this year, one of the most talked-about presentations came from Wombat Housing. They had a problem familiar to many community organisations: after-hours demand, stretched resources, and an urgent need to make support more accessible.

Their solution? A conversational AI tool called WomBot. Designed with care and purpose, WomBot now handles thousands of after-hours queries, directing clients to appropriate services and freeing up frontline workers to focus on complex needs. Eighty-four percent of users prefer starting with it. That’s not just clever tech. That’s governance and innovation working hand in hand.

The lesson? Good governance doesn’t resist innovation. It channels it. It ensures that new tools serve the mission, not the other way around. And it does so in a way that builds, rather than erodes, public trust.

What the ACNC Stands For

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is grounded in three statutory objects: to enhance public trust and confidence in the sector, to reduce red tape, and to support a robust, vibrant, and innovative sector.

That middle goal – reducing red tape – matters. The best governance systems are those that enable, not entangle. But today I want to focus more on the first and third goals: trust and innovation. Because in times of change, those two must work in concert.

When communities are dealing with economic strain, when information ecosystems are polarised, and when technological change is accelerating, trust doesn’t maintain itself. It must be earned and re-earned. Governance is how we do that.

And innovation? That’s how we stay relevant. But only if we embed it in clear purpose, strong oversight, and a willingness to learn.

That’s why the work of the ACNC, and forums like this one, are so essential. They help build clarity around what good governance looks like in the real world – not in abstract models, but in the messy, mission-driven, under-resourced world that many of you operate in every day.

They also create space for something too often overlooked: peer learning. From boardrooms in Broome to budget meetings in Bairnsdale, Australia’s 60,000 charities are wrestling with similar issues. This forum helps turn those experiences into collective insight.