Reimagining a Civil Australia.
A defining development of the year was the advancement of the Foundation’s major national initiative for 2026: Reimagining a Civil Australia.
Developed throughout 2025 and made public later in the year, the initiative responds to one of the defining leadership challenges of our time — how Australians engage across difference in an era of distrust, outrage and division. Rather than treating civility as etiquette or surface politeness, the Foundation has framed it as a deeper leadership and systems challenge.
Developed throughout 2025 and made public later in the year, the initiative responds to one of the defining leadership challenges of our time — how Australians engage across difference in an era of distrust, outrage and division. Rather than treating civility as etiquette or surface politeness, the Foundation has framed it as a deeper leadership and systems challenge.
Civility, in this context, is the appetite and ability to engage constructively with one another across fundamental differences in common cause. It is not about avoiding disagreement. It is about strengthening the conditions that make respectful disagreement, problem-solving and democratic participation possible.
The initiative moved into pilot development during 2025, with communities including Ballarat and Tasmania preparing locally grounded approaches to strengthening trust, participation and social cohesion. Planned activities included learning circles, community-led micro-experiments and a schools-based Design Out Racism Challenge, designed to equip young people to help shape more constructive civic cultures.
Importantly, these pilots are intended to generate practical insight for a broader national response. The Foundation also convened a growing coalition of partners spanning philanthropy, local government, media, education and community organisations to help sense-make the learnings and identify scalable mechanisms for strengthening civility across Australia.
Across all of this work, one message became increasingly clear: leadership is not something done to communities. It is something practiced within them.
It is found in neighbours organising support during hardship, citizens participating in difficult conversations, communities working across division, and local organisations aligning around shared outcomes.
In 2025, the Foundation continued to invest in this vision of leadership — one where the strength of a nation depends not only on those who govern, but on the capacity of citizens to participate, contribute and act for the greater good.
Importantly, Reimagining a Civil Australia is not a campaign imposed from above. It is designed as civic infrastructure — creating spaces, partnerships and practices through which communities can shape their own future together.
Across all of this work, one message has become increasingly clear: leadership is not something done to communities. It is something practiced within them.
It is found in neighbours organising support during hardship, citizens engaging respectfully across disagreement, local organisations collaborating beyond sector boundaries, and communities choosing connection over division.
In 2025, the Foundation continued to invest in this vision of leadership — one where the strength of a nation depends not only on those who govern, but on the capacity of citizens to participate, contribute and act for the greater good.
At a time of deepening distrust and division, one of the most urgent leadership challenges facing Australia is also one of the most overlooked: how we engage across difference. In 2025, the Menzies Leadership Foundation advanced Reimagining a Civil Australia — framing civility not as etiquette, but as a deeper leadership and systems challenge — testing locally grounded approaches in Ballarat and Tasmania through a growing coalition spanning philanthropy, local government, media, education and community organisations.
Leadership is not something done to communities. It is something practiced within them. If you believe the strength of a nation depends not only on those who govern, but on the capacity of citizens to participate, contribute and act for the greater good, we invite you to stay connected with the Menzies Leadership Foundation and the work reimagining civic life in Australia.
