In May 2026 a small group of NGO CEOs in health, community and human services sat down for a private off-the-record breakfast and considered the question: how do you read and work with the rhythms of government when those rhythms keep shifting, often at different beats across federal and state, and not always in your favour.
The rhythm has changed
People described losing rhythm this year. The pattern that used to work, reading what was coming, pre-thinking, briefing the senior team, has been disrupted. Federal interruptions, state shifts, geopolitical pressures, technology and AI demands are landing at once.
The advocacy script written for the last government has expired
This was the clearest thing to come out of the morning. The patterns of engagement that worked under the previous state government do not work with this one. Walking in with a “we have a good deal for you” lands flat. Coming in critical of government is treated as distasteful and reduces rather than builds influence. Advocacy framed for the previous government will not fly. What works now is reading this government's authorising environment, the signals it is giving about which problems and policy areas it is prepared to engage on, and how it wants the harder social questions worked through. Alongside that, this government rewards delivery on commitments, knowing your subject deeply, and doing what you say you will do, whether you are an NGO or a department.
The money conversation is over
There was strong agreement, including from a public sector vantage, that the conversation about not having enough money is over. At sector level the spend is large and growing, even though many individual organisations are running stretched. What is needed is a different conversation. More flexibility in contracts, outcomes rather than inputs, productivity, and organisations bringing their own investment alongside government funding. Several around the table spoke about going back to their boards with the questions: what are we putting in, what value can we demonstrate, and how do we propose to spend existing investment differently.
Where to put the engagement effort has shifted
At a federal level, Primary Health Networks were flagged as a funding vehicle likely to take on a greater role in commissioning using Commonwealth funds. At a state level, the energy in the room was around backbenchers, parliamentary secretaries and assistant ministers, who are accessible, often ambitious, and well placed to influence ministers up the line. Mincos and the multilateral forums were named as a significantly under-used mechanism for influence. The pattern was consistent. Less time chasing the minister. More time understanding the architecture and the people who shape decisions.
Cross-portfolio work is increasingly the sector's job
Several around the table observed that ministers in this government stay in their lanes. Cross-agency collaboration is not on the agenda at senior officer level, and governments’ fiscal discipline of living within your means is reinforcing that. Senior public servants are rewarded for delivery inside their own area of responsibility, not for stretching across portfolios.
Effective health and human services policy relies on intersectionality, despite limited political and budgetary support. Cross-portfolio collaboration remains necessary and could be led by NGOs connecting different parts of the system.
At a state level, there is a strong separation between how executive government and the public service operate. Ministers in this government are not intervening on stakeholders’ behalf in the way they may have in previous governments. That makes the working relationship with the public service more important.
The collective is more powerful than the individual organisation
Government, particularly under fiscal pressure, prefers one well-framed point of contact to a hundred competing ones. That creates real opportunity for peak bodies that can organise sharp, joined-up positions and bring genuine value to the table. Discussion in the room was about how peaks can demonstrate the return government gets from investing in them. Building independent evidence of value, rather than relying on data sourced from departments, came up. So did framing advocacy in the language this government recognises, rather than relying on patterns of habit from the previous decade.
The public service is a long-term ally
A useful distinction came up. Executive government and the public service are not the same thing. Public servants are managing their own large-scale adjustment cycle, and senior officers are progressing reform even when executive government is publicly silent. Trusting, durable relationships with public servants, built well before something goes wrong is a good investment. Treating the public service as the obstacle, or burning that relationship for short- term media advantage, was identified as a corrosive legacy of the last decade.
The sector has space to bring policy work in
An opportunity came up around back-to-basics policy work. There is space for NGOs that can collectively organise themselves to bring well-framed policy thinking to a department. A department approached well, with a credible offer to organise the sector around policy work in an area government cares about, would likely respond positively. The freedom to do that kind of thinking outside government is one of the strengths the sector has right now.
The Peer Room is an invitation-led breakfast for chief executives of NGOs in health, community and human services. The Wider Lens is a version of it for the senior leaders below them. Email susanne@lebout.com.au if you would like an invitation to either, or to put one of your senior leaders forward.
