A National Initiative · Launched Ballarat, February 2026
Reimagining a
Civil Australia
A national initiative exploring how civility, trust and constructive engagement across difference can be strengthened in communities across Australia.
Launched in Ballarat in February 2026, the initiative brings together national leadership, place-based partnerships and community insight to explore how civility can be rebuilt and strengthened in practice.
Civility is more than politeness. It is civic infrastructure.
Across Australia, communities are navigating rising distrust, polarisation, racism, social fragmentation and increasing pressure on the relationships that hold us together.
Reimagining a Civil Australia responds to this challenge by asking a practical question: what does it take to strengthen the conditions for people to remain in relationship across difference?
This work positions civility not as etiquette or avoidance of disagreement, but as a shared leadership capability — the ability to listen, disagree, repair, participate and act for the greater good.
Launched in Ballarat
From national call to local action
In February 2026, the Menzies Leadership Foundation launched Reimagining a Civil Australia in Ballarat, with the Ballarat Civility Exchange as the first place-based expression of the initiative.
The launch was held alongside the 2026 Menzies Oration at Federation University, where Hugh de Kretser, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, explored the relationship between social cohesion, leadership, civility and the future of Australia.
With Sir Peter Cosgrove chairing the National Civility Taskforce, the launch brought national credibility and profile to a deeply local question: how do communities build the trust, courage and capability to engage constructively across difference?
The work in motion
Civility in practice:
from launch to learning
The February launch marked the beginning of the journey. The Ballarat Civility Exchange showcase now shows the work in motion.
Through community voice, local insight and emerging patterns, the showcase captures how civility is being experienced in place — where trust is being built, where it is being depleted, and where small experiments may help strengthen the relational fabric of the community.
This is the first in a series of live, place-based showcases that will help track the progress of the initiative over time.
2026 Initiative Snapshot
A national initiative, building from place
Place by place
Reimagining a Civil Australia is being shaped through place-based pilots across Australia. Each community brings a different history, context and set of tensions. Together, they are helping build a national understanding of how civility can be strengthened in practice.
Ballarat Civility Exchange
The first place-based pilot of Reimagining a Civil Australia, led locally with the Ballarat Foundation. The showcase captures community reflections, emerging patterns and early insights from the Ballarat launch.
Tasmania
A place-based civility and community resilience process exploring how local leadership, connection and trust can support communities navigating change and complexity.
Alice Springs / Mparntwe
A local pilot exploring civility, trust, leadership and community resilience in one of Australia's most complex and important civic contexts.
What we are learning
Emerging insights
As the initiative unfolds, the Menzies Leadership Foundation will share emerging insights from each place-based pilot — identifying common patterns, local differences and practical opportunities to strengthen civility across Australia.
Trust is built through small deposits
Everyday actions — listening, including, showing up, making space and staying curious — can strengthen the relational fabric of a community.
Civility requires local infrastructure
Libraries, schools, parks, workplaces, neighbourhoods, community groups and informal gathering places all play a role in how people connect across difference.
The "in-between" matters
Some behaviours are not yet clearly building trust or depleting it. These are the places where small experiments may help shift the system.
Hidden helpers need to be seen
The people who connect, repair, include and hold communities together often do this work quietly. Recognising and supporting them is critical.
Frameworks from the first phase of the Coalition
Through five convenings, the Coalition developed a set of working artefacts — frames, conditions, levels, matrices and strategy tools — to anchor collective practice. Each is a draft, designed to be used, contested and improved.
Four Frames of Civility
A working language for civility as relational, structural, cultural and civic — created to give the coalition a shared map for discussion.
View Artefact →Conditions for Civility
The enabling conditions — safety, recognition, voice, repair — that allow people to remain in relationship across difference.
View Artefact →Levels of Work
From the personal to the systemic: a layered view of where civility is practised, contested and shaped.
View Artefact →Tensions for Collective Work
The productive frictions a coalition must navigate — and what working through them unlocks.
View Artefact →Four Levels × Initiatives Matrix
Worked examples mapped against each level of civility, surfacing where action is concentrated and where gaps remain.
View Artefact →Four Conditions for Collective Strategy
What a coalition needs to hold for strategy to be more than the sum of individual organisations.
View Artefact →Featured Showcase
The February launch made the national call. The Ballarat showcase shows the work in motion.
Ballarat Civility Exchange:
the first live showcase
The Ballarat Civility Exchange is the first place-based showcase from the Reimagining a Civil Australia initiative.
Launched in February 2026, the Exchange brought together local leaders, community members and national partners to explore how civility is experienced in Ballarat — where trust is being built, where it is being depleted, and where small civic practices may help strengthen connection across difference.
The showcase captures the next phase of the work: moving from public launch to local learning. Through community reflections and emerging insights, it helps make visible the relational infrastructure of civility — the everyday behaviours, places, networks and leadership practices that shape how communities navigate difference.
2026 Public launch
Sir Peter Cosgrove · National Civility Taskforce
A national initiative grounded in local experience
Reimagining a Civil Australia is convened by the Menzies Leadership Foundation in partnership with local communities, national leaders and cross-sector collaborators.
The National Civility Taskforce, chaired by Sir Peter Cosgrove, supports the broader ambition of the initiative: to strengthen Australia's capacity to engage constructively across difference and build the civic trust required for a resilient democracy.
Partners in the work
Reimagining a Civil Australia is a coalition of organisations contributing place, research, practice and stewardship. Each partner brings a distinct mandate; together they hold the conditions for collective work.
Menzies Leadership Foundation
Hosts the Coalition and stewards the initiative, connecting place-based pilots with national leadership and research.
Ballarat Foundation
Anchors the first place-based pilot — the Ballarat Civility Exchange — and links the work to community infrastructure on the ground.
Collaboration for Impact
Hosts the Menzies Oration and provides academic anchoring for the launch and emerging research agenda.
The Ethics Centre
Brings national evidence on social cohesion and informs the framing of civility as civic infrastructure.
Global Access Partners
Strategy and engagement design partner supporting Coalition method, facilitation and emerging frameworks.
Welcoming Australia
Chaired by Sir Peter Cosgrove — provides national stewardship and visibility for the Coalition's ambition.
What the Coalition has shaped together
Beyond convenings and frameworks, the Coalition has produced tangible outputs — joint submissions, research collaborations and shared frameworks — that carry civility into the wider policy and practice conversation.
Royal Commission submission
A joint Coalition submission to the Royal Commission, articulating civility as civic infrastructure and the conditions required to strengthen it.
Submitting jointly mattered: it modelled the very capacity the submission argues for — different organisations holding a shared position across difference.Read the Collective Submission → Read the Foundation's Submission →
With Scanlon & Tanck
MLF worked with the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute and Tanck to test how civility connects with national social-cohesion evidence and Coalition practice.
The collaboration produced a shared reading of the data and a clearer line of sight from national trends to place-based action.View the Results →
Frameworks for collective action
A framework for collective action and an emerging Investment Framework for social cohesion — both designed to help funders, leaders and place partners coordinate effort.
Built from Coalition practice; intended for adaptation by others doing similar work in their own contexts.Explore the Frameworks →
Sarah Jenkins on holding the Coalition's first phase
Coalition facilitator Sarah Jenkins has documented the design choices, tensions and emerging insights from the first phase of convenings — offering a candid view of what collective work across difference actually requires.
Her case study and blog sit alongside this site as companion reading for partners, funders and practitioners interested in the method behind the work.
Coalition Working Site →Follow the civility journey
Ballarat showcase launch
The live Ballarat Civility Exchange opens for community reflection and emerging insights.
Read More →Hugh de Kretser: cohesion & civility
Key excerpts and media from the 2026 Menzies Oration at Federation University.
Watch Oration →What we're learning
Initial reflections on trust, hidden helpers and the relational infrastructure of place.
Read More →Where next
Five convenings in. Considering what comes next.
Over five Coalition meetings, the Menzies Leadership Foundation and partners have built shared language, working artefacts and tangible outputs — from the joint Royal Commission submission to the place-based pilots.
The Coalition is now considering how to build on that foundation: bringing further organisation into the work, deepening place-based pilots, and translating frameworks into investment and practice.
