It is a real pleasure to be with you on Ngunnawal country at this year's National Summit. Thank you to Liz Ritchie and the team from the Regional Australia Institute for inviting me to join you.
As Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, community is central to my work. In each of my portfolios, the lesson is the same: when communities are strong, the nation prospers. Community makes us more productive. A well‑connected workforce is an efficient one, where people find jobs through networks and businesses succeed through trust. Community strengthens the budget bottom line, because healthy, resilient communities mean lower costs for government services. Community enables charities, which are some of the most trusted institutions in our nation, helping us tackle problems that governments alone cannot solve. And when there are more local organisations, including new business forms such as cooperatives, there is greater competition, which means more dynamism, better services and lower prices.
A few years ago, Nick Terrell and I wrote a book called Reconnected, which explored why community life had weakened in some parts of Australia and what we might do to revive it. The core message was simple: when people join together, we are all better off.
That message is particularly relevant in regional Australia. In many ways, the bush has held on to traditions of community that cities have lost. People in regional Australia are more likely to know their neighbours. They are more likely to volunteer. They are more likely to join a club or association.
But we cannot romanticise life in the regions. The challenges are real. Bank branches have closed in dozens of towns, forcing people to drive hours just to the next branch. Young people move to the cities for education and work, leaving older generations to carry the load. The impacts of climate change are being felt hardest in rural Australia, through longer droughts, fiercer fires and more severe floods. Volunteer fatigue is widespread, with the same dedicated people putting their hands up for everything from the fire service to the show society to the sports club.
So yes, the pressures are substantial. But that is precisely why the strength of community building in the bush is so important. It is what allows people not just to endure, but to thrive.
The truth is that regional Australia is alive with thousands of stories of people coming together. Today I want to highlight just 6 of them. They come from Birdsville, Mia Mia, southwest Queensland, Hay, the Bega Valley and Arlparra. Each shows a different dimension of community building. And then I want to step back and look at some of the larger programs that are helping to take these sparks and fan them into something bigger, ensuring that the spirit of connection is not confined to a handful of towns, but part of a broader renewal across regional Australia.
Birdsville and Tackling Tough Times Together
For most Australians, Birdsville is best known for its annual races - a quirky outback event that draws thousands of visitors who camp in the desert and cheer as horses kick up the dust of the Diamantina. But for the rest of the year, Birdsville is a tiny town, closer to Adelaide than Brisbane, where isolation is the norm.
During the long drought years, when paddocks turned brown and stock numbers dwindled, people in Birdsville could easily have retreated behind their own fences. Instead, they reached out. With support from the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal's Tackling Tough Times Together program, local groups ran events, upgraded facilities and created opportunities to gather. In places without cafés or shopping centres, these were not luxuries, they were lifelines. They were reminders that even in the most remote parts of the country, you are never truly alone if you have a community.
The lesson from Birdsville is simple: when locals are trusted to decide what matters, they will choose connection - because in a place where the landscape is unforgiving, solidarity is the key to survival.
Mia Mia: neighbours as first responders
In the small Victorian town of Mia Mia, population around 200, community strength revealed itself in a different way. Here, the challenge was not drought but distance from emergency services.
Paediatric nurse Grace Larson saw that rural families had little access to training in CPR and emergency response. Yet in a crisis, when ambulances can take half an hour to arrive, those skills can mean the difference between tragedy and survival.
Grace founded the Sisterhood Project, running free first‑aid courses in local halls. Parents and grandparents gathered not just to learn how to save lives, but to meet one another. The sessions built competence, and they also built confidence in the strength of neighbours helping neighbours.
In Mia Mia, community building grew from something intensely practical. Learning how to keep a child breathing in an emergency became the spark for trust, conversation and a stronger sense of connection.
Southwest Queensland: women's voices in hard times
Across the drought‑affected landscapes of southwest Queensland, where red dust settles on everything and rivers shrink to a trickle, another form of community building has taken shape.
The Stories of Country Women project invited rural women to share their experiences of keeping farms running, raising families and supporting neighbours through the toughest years. Workshops, podcasts and short films became the vehicle for something more important: women finding their voices.
In towns where conversations had long centred on stock prices and rainfall, women began telling their own stories - of ingenuity, resilience and leadership. What began as storytelling grew into networks of support, new skills, and confidence in their own authority.
In southwest Queensland, community building came through voice - the simple but powerful act of being heard, and of recognising strength in one another.
Hay: bridging divides
On the wide Hay Plains of New South Wales, where the horizon stretches unbroken and the land is famed as some of the flattest in the world, community building took another form.
Farmer Sandra Ireson saw 2 gaps: farms struggling to attract young workers, and the growing distance between city and country Australians. Her answer was Hay Inc, a rural education program that brings young people to the district to learn hands‑on agricultural skills.
Some participants go on to careers in agriculture. Others return to the city with new respect for the realities of farm life. Either way, Hay Inc is a bridge. It revitalises local farms and narrows the cultural divide between urban and rural.
On the Hay Plains, community building meant creating doorways where there were once walls - and inviting people to step through.
Bega: circular solutions
In the lush Bega Valley, long known for its dairying heritage, community innovation has taken the form of a cooperative.
The Circularity Co‑op, sometimes called the Circular Valley initiative, brings together farmers, businesses and residents around the idea that nothing should go to waste. Local circular projects focus on finding new uses for materials that would otherwise be discarded, from organic waste to manufacturing by‑products.
The results are environmental, reducing waste and making the region more sustainable. But they are also profoundly social. People who might never have met - dairy farmers and tech entrepreneurs, students and councillors - find themselves working together.
In Bega, community building is not only about maintaining traditions but about reimagining the local economy itself as something circular, sustainable and shared. It is proof that regional communities can be pioneers of the future as well as custodians of the past.
Arlparra: culture as connection
In Arlparra, at the heart of Utopia in the Northern Territory, the opening of the Utopia Art Centre has become a beacon of community pride.
At first glance it looks like a gallery and studio. But for the people of Arlparra it is far more. It is a gathering place where Elders and young people meet, where traditions are passed down, and where stories are painted into being.
For artists, the Centre provides recognition and income. For the community, it provides belonging and pride. For the nation, it is a reminder that culture is not an ornament but the bedrock of connection.
In Arlparra, community building is expressed in colour and canvas - a dialogue across generations that strengthens the spirit as much as the economy.
Scaling community‑building
These 6 stories are inspiring. But they also raise a larger question: how do we take the spark of community building and help it spread more widely?
Across regional Australia there are programs that do just that.
Rural Aid's Community Builders program helps clusters of towns work together over many months, learning from one another and supporting each other's ideas.
The Landcare movement has long shown the power of neighbours working side by side. Today, programs under the Landcare umbrella continue to strengthen local groups - not just by helping them care for the land, but by building networks and confidence that carry over into every part of community life.
The Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal plays a vital role too, giving small towns the means to do the projects that matter most to them - whether that is refurbishing a hall, running a festival, or keeping a local service going.
At the leadership level, the Australian Rural Leadership Program brings together emerging leaders from across the regions. The Leading Australian Resilient Communities program, a partnership between the Regional Australia Institute and the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, is another example, helping people build the skills and networks needed to respond to drought, economic shifts and natural disasters.
For younger Australians, the ABC's Heywire program gives regional youth the chance to tell their stories, connect with one another, and take part in leadership opportunities. For many, it is the first time they have seen their experiences reflected on a national stage, and the first step towards shaping change in their own communities.
And Partnerships for Local Area Community Engagement (PLACE) Australia shows another path. PLACE supports communities to design and deliver their own solutions, working with local people, councils, charities and businesses. It starts from the belief that the best answers to local challenges are usually found locally, and that when people are trusted and supported, they will create initiatives that fit their place and endure.
These programs matter because they take what we see in innovative locations and make it possible for it to happen in dozens of other towns. They are about ensuring that community building is not just local and fleeting, but sustained and shared.
Conclusion
Six places. Each distinct, each distant, yet each teaching the same lesson: that community building is what sustains us.
Community building is not an abstract idea. It is people coming together to create resilience, identity and belonging. It is what helps regional Australia face droughts, bushfires, service closures and demographic change.
And when those efforts are amplified by programs like Rural Aid's Community Builders, Landcare, the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, the Australian Rural Leadership Program, Leading Australian Resilient Communities, ABC Heywire and PLACE Australia, they become more than isolated sparks. They become part of a movement, woven into the fabric of regional Australia.
As a government, we support stronger connections. Since coming into office, we have worked to back the charities and not‑for‑profits that make community building possible.
We have improved the deductible gift recipient system by creating a new pathway for community foundations. We have streamlined the deductible gift recipient application process for environmental organisations, harm prevention charities, cultural organisations and overseas aid groups. We have refreshed the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑profits Commission Advisory Board to include representation from all states and territories as well as First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse voices. We have appointed Sue Woodward, a widely respected charity expert, as Commissioner.
We have made clear that charitable advocacy is welcomed, not feared. We worked with states and territories to harmonise fundraising laws. And we have funded a new General Social Survey to give us better insights into volunteering, giving and participation. And we are working on implementing reports from the Productivity Commission on philanthropy and the Blueprint Expert Reference Group on sector empowerment.
All of this matters because strong charities help sustain strong communities. They are often the scaffolding on which local initiatives are built.
Regional Australia reminds us that connection is not just possible, it is powerful. It is the wellspring of resilience and hope. Our task is to ensure that the bonds that hold communities together are recognised, supported and renewed.
If we succeed, then the lessons of Birdsville, Mia Mia, Hay, Bega, Arlparra and countless other towns will not only shape the future of the bush, they will shape the future of the nation.
Note: My thanks to Treasury officials for valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this speech.
