This chapter introduces the Review’s background, context and objectives. It highlights how Australia is looking to adapt their approaches to strengthening citizen trust in public institutions in a context of pressing policy challenges, changing citizens’ expectations, and accelerated digital transformation. The chapter underscores the importance of protecting civic space and promoting meaningful citizen participation as key levers to enhance trust – a priority objective identified by the Australian Government.
Open Government Review of Australia
Strengthening Civic Space and Participation
Abstract
Australia is navigating a period of interconnected pressures common to many OECD countries, including rising inequality, a cost of living crisis, constrained fiscal space, ageing populations, technological change and polarisation. While the country is characterised by robust public institutions, a vibrant civil society, and a long tradition of democratic innovation, it is not immune to these pressures. As in many OECD countries, they are impacting trust in public institutions, social cohesion and democratic resilience (Department of Home Affairs, 2024[1]; OECD, 2026[2]; OECD, 2025[3]).
Moreover, these pressures not only test governments’ capacity to deliver public services, but also challenge their ability to act decisively on complex, long-term reforms. While 51% of Australians report high or moderately high trust in the federal government, above the OECD average of 39%, trust weakens when it comes to addressing long-term, complex challenges. This reflects a broader OECD trend: governments face growing expectations to consult and manage risks while also being expected to act decisively. Building trust and consensus is therefore critical to the success of complex reforms. Stronger citizen participation can support this by improving government responsiveness and building public buy-in.
In Australia, trust is particularly associated with citizens’ confidence in their own ability to participate, even more than with perceptions of having a direct influence on decisions. Yet, Australians’ actual levels of participation tend to rank comparatively low by OECD standards, pointing to the need for more accessible and meaningful opportunities for citizens to genuinely participate. The digital transition creates both a challenge and an opportunity in this regard. While Australians increasingly conduct their daily lives online, they are less likely than the OECD average to engage with political content online and report limited impact from doing so (OECD, 2025[4]). This creates scope for government to develop more effective digital channels for participation that meet citizens where they are.
Because participation depends on the ability of citizens and civil society to organise, express views and engage freely in public life, strengthening participation mechanisms alone is insufficient. Meaningful citizen participation in public life rests on a strong and protected civic space, understood as the set of legal, policy, institutional, and practical conditions that allow people to access information, express themselves, associate, and engage in public life (OECD, 2022[5]). When civic space is protected and actively nurtured, individuals and civil society stakeholders can participate in public life, advocate for change without fear of retribution and communities, in particular vulnerable and marginalised individuals and groups, are empowered to mobilise around shared interests and publicly voice their concerns and policy priorities. As such, open civic space encourages a range of voices to engage in democratic processes, strengthening both the quality and breadth of public participation. In turn, engagement is richer and governments are better able to understand different societal concerns and anticipate emerging tensions.
Beyond strengthening trust in public institutions, civic space and participation are also important for social cohesion, another core factor underpinning democratic resilience. Australia's Measuring What Matters Framework describes a cohesive society as one that supports connections with family, friends and the community, values diversity, and promotes belonging and culture (Australian Government, 2024[6]). Consistent with this, Australian research has found a relationship between lower levels of trust in government and lower levels of social cohesion, suggesting that citizens’ confidence in public institutions is linked to broader patterns of belonging, connectedness and collective engagement (O’Donnell, Falkiner and Szacha, 2025[7]). Across Australian research, communities and policy discussions, social cohesion is increasingly understood not only as individuals' experiences such as inclusion, trust, safety and belonging, but also as the quality of relationships and dynamics of the networks that connect people across differences, and the wider conditions that enable participation and engagement. These conditions include civic space, democratic institutions, social and civic infrastructure, public narratives, information environments and socio-economic circumstances. Civic space and participation play a particularly important role because they provide opportunities for people to connect through associations, community organisations, informal civic initiatives and public participation processes (OECD, 2024[8]; OECD, 2011[9]). Through these network interactions, individuals and groups can build dense, diverse and durable relationships, strengthen interdependencies, foster a shared sense of belonging, and work constructively across disagreement and difference (Vergani et al., 2026[10]). Taken together, a thriving civic space and meaningful participation contribute not only to trust in institutions but also to the social connections, networks and enabling conditions that support collective action, strengthen social cohesion and reinforce democratic resilience over time.
Based on this conceptual understanding, this review assesses the environment for meaningful civic engagement in democratic life in Australia. This chapter compares Australia's civic engagement outcomes and trust in government trends against those of other OECD countries. The data presented in this chapter provides valuable insights into the evolving citizen-government relationship in Australia and sets the scene for the subsequent chapters, which assess Australia's current efforts and opportunities for the government to strengthen civic space (Chapter 2) and enhance participation-related governance arrangements (Chapter 3). Chapter 3 in particular builds on the participation data introduced here, narrowing the focus to a country-specific analysis of Australia's own participation landscape.
This Review was developed at the request of the Australian Government, in particular the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) and the Office for Social Cohesion (OSC) within the Department of Home Affairs. It identifies opportunities for the country to better protect and promote civic space (Chapter 2) and foster more meaningful citizen participation (Chapter 3) in a context of rapid digitalisation and increasing expectations from citizens vis-à-vis their government. The Review provides action-oriented recommendations for the short, medium and long term to help the Australian government at the federal level build on its strengths and replicate successful practices across the country (see Annex A). The review builds on several OECD standards, including the OECD Recommendation on Open Government (Box 1.1) as well as comparative evidence and good practices in the field of civic space and citizen participation.
Adopted in 2017, the Recommendation of the Council on Open Government provides the first internationally recognised legal framework for countries to design and implement open government reforms, defining open government as a culture of governance based on transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation. The Recommendation places emphasis on co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation, proactive disclosure of public information and citizen participation throughout the policy cycle, and the use of innovative and digital tools to co-create solutions with citizens. More broadly, it encourages countries to move from an “open government” approach towards an “open state”, in which the executive, legislature, judiciary, independent institutions and subnational governments work together to advance openness and strengthen public trust.
The recommendation includes several provisions which are key for civic space and citizen participation, including:
Provision 1 recommends that Adherents take measures “in all branches and at all levels of the government, to develop and implement open government strategies and initiatives in collaboration with stakeholders”.
Provision 2 focuses on the need to ensure the “existence and implementation of the necessary open government legal and regulatory framework” while establishing adequate oversight mechanisms.
Provision 8 recognises the need to grant all stakeholders “equal and fair opportunities to be informed and consulted” on governance issues and for them to actively engage in all phases of public sector decision making and service design and delivery.
Provision 9: “promote innovative ways to effectively engage with stakeholders to source ideas and co-create solutions and seize the opportunities provided by digital government tools, including through the use of open government data, to support the achievement of the objectives of open government strategies and initiatives”.
Source: OECD (2017[11]), Recommendation of the Council on Open Government, OECD, Paris, https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0438.
This Review follows an OECD country study on the drivers of trust in public institutions in Australia, published in 2025 (OECD, 2025[4]) and draws on data from the 2023 and 2025 waves of the OECD Trust Survey (OECD, 2024[12]; OECD, 2026[2]). It builds on Australia’s commitment to open government and ongoing efforts to strengthen trust in the country. Through its Open Government Partnership (OGP) action plans, the Australian Government has previously committed to a range of reforms to improve access to information, enhance public integrity, and expand opportunities for citizen engagement. In Australia’s latest OGP cycle, the Third National Action Plan (2024-2025) included eight commitments (AGD, 2024[13]), spanning across areas such as automated decision making, youth participation, public sector integrity, beneficial ownership, public procurement, whistleblower protection and media literacy. As of April 2026, Australia is in the process of developing its Fourth National Action Plan, with the final plan to be published by end of the year (AGD, 2026[14]).
More broadly, Australia has undertaken a sustained effort to modernise its public administration and reorient it around the needs of citizens1. A significant milestone in this journey was the 2019 Independent Review of the Australian Public Service (APS), commonly known as the Thodey Review, commissioned by the Australian Government in 2018 to assess whether the APS remained fit for purpose for the decades ahead. Drawing on extensive consultation with over 11 000 individuals and organisations, the Review provided a comprehensive assessment of the APS's capability, culture and operating model, and put forward 40 recommendations to build a trusted, citizen-centred public service. Building on these foundations, the Government launched the APS Reform Program in 2022 to drive system-wide transformation. Structured around four pillars (integrity, the APS as a model employer, organisational capability, and people-centred policy and service delivery) the Reform Program marked a shift from isolated, agency-specific initiatives towards an integrated, whole-of-service approach to change. It has since served as a catalyst for several cross-cutting workstreams, including the development of the Charter of Partnerships and Engagement and the APSC's work on measuring citizens’ trust in government (Box 1.2).
This box sets out a range of initiatives as the institutional context for the review.
APS Reform
APS Reform sought to modernise the Australian Public Service (APS), building on the 2019 Thodey Review’s call for a more capable, citizen-focused and trusted public service (APSC, 2020[15]). Informed by lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Robodebt Scheme, the reform agenda strengthened integrity, accountability and capability, including through the Public Service Amendment Act 2024 and investments in APS skills and expertise (APSC, 2024[16]). It also embedded a more citizen-centred approach to policy and service design and delivery (APSC, 2025[17]), a shift discussed further in Chapter 3.
About the APSC
The APSC is a statutory body responsible for developing and promoting APS employment policies and practices, fostering leadership and capability across the public service, and promoting high standards of integrity and conduct.
Key initiatives
Charter of Partnerships and Engagement
Agreed by the Secretaries Board and published in December 2023, the Charter sets six principles for quality engagement and partnerships with external stakeholders, building on the 2019 APS Framework for Engagement and Participation. See more in Chapter 3.
Measuring trust in public institutions and democratic health
The APSC leads national measurement of public trust, including the Survey of Trust in Australian Public Services and the 2023 Survey of Trust in Australian Democracy. See more in Chapter 3.
Source: APSC
Australia also established, in January 2023, the Strengthening Democracy Taskforce within the Department of Home Affairs. Mandated to assess the health of Australian democracy and identify practical measures to reinforce it against emerging domestic and global pressures, the Strengthening Democracy Taskforce drew on wide consultation and extensive research before presenting its report, Strengthening Australian Democracy: A Practical Agenda for Democratic Resilience, in July 2024 (Strengthening Democracy Taskforce, 2024[18]). The report concluded that Australia's democracy is strong, but vulnerable, facing interconnected and often reinforcing challenges such as foreign interference, polarisation, intolerance, inequality and declining trust. In October 2024, the Strengthening Democracy Taskforce was incorporated into the OSC within the Australian Department of Home Affairs (Box 1.3).
The Strengthening Democracy Taskforce, established by the Department of Home Affairs in January 2023, conducted an 18-month process of research and consultation that culminated in the July 2024 report Strengthening Australian Democracy: A Practical Agenda for Democratic Resilience. Building on this work, the Department subsequently established the OSC to embed democratic resilience as a sustained institutional priority and support cross-department and interjurisdictional strategic policy co-ordination and policy innovation.
About the report “Strengthening Australian Democracy: A Practical Agenda for Democratic Resilience”
Prepared through 18 months of research and wide-ranging consultation, the report is organised around five propositions: that democracy is a national asset worth protecting; that Australia has a long tradition of democratic innovation to draw on; that its democracy today is "strong, but vulnerable"; that it faces a new constellation of interconnected challenges; and that a strong democracy must be a resilient one. It identifies risks and core strengths, including trusted institutions and credible information, and calls for action on electoral integrity, the information environment and digital and media literacy, among others.
Establishment of the Office for Social Cohesion
In October 2024, the Taskforce transitioned into the OSC, signalling a transition from a time-limited taskforce to a sustained institutional function. The office is tasked with co-ordinating a whole-of-government strategic policy narrative of social cohesion and democratic resilience, developing and delivering targeted policy initiatives and pilot programmes that leverage government and non-government functions to build a more cohesive society and enabling research and evaluation, information-sharing, innovation and collaboration across jurisdictions, sectors and international partners. OSC seeks to overcome the institutional design challenges which result in policy and impact levers being distributed across agencies, leaving democratic resilience, civic space and social cohesion without responsible policy focal points and a whole-of-government approach.
Today, the OSC also works across jurisdictions and sectors, partnering with academia, industry and civil society organisations (CSOs). Building from the Taskforce, the Office also supported the formation of a national cross-sector Australian Resilient Democracy Network (ARDN) to connect policy questions with civil society leaders and the research and analysis community. The ARDN was established to address observations that the research and innovation communities were siloed and often focused on describing the problems, not on what works and matters most to strengthen our systems. This Network now provides an ongoing connection and a reference framework for research and policy development, thereby shifting away from transactional knowledge translation models. By leveraging these partnerships, the OSC acts as a central mechanism to ensuring Australia’s commitment to strengthening social cohesion and democratic resilience remains strong into the future.
Source: Department of Home Affairs (n.d.[19]), “Office for Social Cohesion”, https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/; Department of Home Affairs (n.d.[20]), “Strengthening Democracy Taskforce”, https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/; Strengthening Democracy Taskforce (2024[18]), Strengthening Australian democracy: A practical agenda for democratic resilience, Department of Home Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.
Australia’s increasing focus on social cohesion is also reflected in the 2024-2025 Annual Report of the Department of Home Affairs which identified more than 400 initiatives aimed at strengthening social cohesion, in total exceeding AUD 4 billion over a 5-year period (Department of Home Affairs, 2025[21]). Australian governments’ efforts have also been enhanced in the context of growing pressures on social cohesion, as will be further discussed in Chapter 2. Notably, the antisemitic terrorist attack in Bondi, Sydney in December 2025 which occurred during the preparation of this Review, prompted an immediate national conversation about social cohesion and the conditions that sustain it. It led to the establishment, in early 2026, of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, with its final report expected end of 2026, alongside a wider package of government measures to strengthen community resilience (Australian Royal Commission, 2025[22]).
1.3.1. Comparative overview of levels of trust in Australia and OECD countries
Australia starts from a position of relative strength regarding trust in government. In 2025, 51% of Australians reported high or moderately high trust in the federal government, above the OECD average of 39% (Figure 1.1). In addition, 48% of Australians believed that the political system allows people like them to have a say in what the government does, compared with an OECD average of 31%. This was the third-highest share across OECD countries, behind Switzerland and Japan. Perceptions have improved steadily since 2021, rising from 32% in 2021 to 46% in 2023 and 48% in 2025. Confidence in one’s own ability to participate in politics has also increased in Australia, from 44% in 2021 to 48% in 2025.
% of population with high or moderately high trust in the national government, 2025
Note: The figure presents the share who provided a response of 6 to 10 to the question “On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all and 10 is
The figure presents the within-country distributions of responses to the question "On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all and 10 is completely, how much do you trust the national government?". A 0-4 response corresponds to "low or no trust", a 5 to "neutral" and a 6-10 to "high or moderately high trust". "OECD" presents the unweighted average of the weighted OECD country averages. Countries to the right of the graph represent OECD accession countries for which data was available.
Source: OECD (2026[2]), OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2026 Results: Navigating Rising Expectations and New Horizons, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9eb63fec-en.
However, as expanded on in Chapter 3, Australia also has one of the largest trust gaps in the OECD between those who feel they can have a say in government decisions and those who do not (OECD, 2025). In 2023, only 18% of Australians who did not feel that people like them have a say in what government does reported high or moderately high trust in the federal government, compared with 78% of those who did. This 60 percentage-point trust gap exceeds the OECD average of 47 points. By contrast, the partisan trust gap in Australia, between people who support the government of the day and those who do not, is 27 percentage points, in line with the OECD average.
The 2025 country study on the drivers of trust in Australia provides further nuance. The analysis uses regression techniques to assess how people’s perceptions of different public governance drivers, together with their personal characteristics, are associated with differences in trust in public institutions. The country-specific analysis found that confidence in one's ability to participate in politics has a clearer and more significant relationship with trust in the federal government than perceptions of having a say in what government does.
1.3.2. How Australians engage in public and political life
In Australia and across all OECD countries, citizens engage in civic activities through many channels, spanning institutionalised (e.g. voting, party membership, formal consultations) and non-institutionalised (e.g. protest, posting political content online, being part of an association) participation forms (Figure 1.2). Changes in citizens’ engagement rates across these forms of participation have shifted markedly over recent decades across all OECD countries, with declining engagement in traditional political activity and changes towards more episodic, digital, issue-driven and self-organised forms, particularly among younger cohorts (Dalton, 2008[23]; van Deth, 2014[24]). This phenomenon is most pronounced in formal, membership-based organisations: trade union density across member countries has halved since 1985, falling from 30% to 15% by 2024 (OECD, 2024[8]). In Australia, just 5% of respondents reported membership of a political party or trade union in 2023, placing Australia in the bottom quartile of OECD Member countries (OECD, 2024[12]).
This section situates Australia’s civic engagement outcomes from a comparative perspective.
% of population who have engaged in activity in the past year, 2025
Note: The figure shows the respective share of population who answered “yes” to one of the given activities in the question “Over the last 12 months, have you done any of the following activities?”. “OECD” refers to the unweighted average of weighted OECD country averages. Countries to the right of the graph represent OECD accession countries for which data was available.
Source: OECD (2026[2]), OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2026 Results: Navigating Rising Expectations and New Horizons, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9eb63fec-en.
Institutionalised participation
Institutionalised participation refers to forms of civic engagement that are formally recognised and structured within the institutional framework of democratic governance. It covers three sub-categories, which are discussed in sections below:
Participation within representative democracy
Participation in policymaking outside the electoral cycle
Participation in government-led civic service and volunteering programmes
Participation in representative democracy (e.g. through elections) has declined steadily across OECD countries over the past three decades, with average turnout in parliamentary elections falling from 75% to 65% between the early 1990s and the early 2020s (OECD, 2024[8]). While a number of OECD countries have compulsory voting laws on paper, Australia stands apart as the only Member country where this obligation is systematically enforced through a formal fine administered by the Australian Electoral Commission (International IDEA, 2025[25]). Despite this structural incentive to vote, Australia has not been immune to the broader trend of declining electoral participation. Parliamentary elections’ turnout fell from around 82% in the early 1990s to approximately 76% by the early 2020s (Figure 1.3).
Voter turnout in latest parliamentary election, early 1990s and early 2020s, percentage of the voting age population
Source: OECD (2024[8]), Society at a Glance 2024: OECD Social Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/918d8db3-en.
The clearest evidence of changing public attitudes towards voter engagement is observed through generational gaps. Across OECD countries, approximately one in six people (17%) report no interest at all in politics (OECD, 2024[8]). In Australia, this share is slightly lower than the OECD average, at 16% of the overall population. However, age-disaggregated data reveal a more pronounced intergenerational divide in Australia than in most OECD countries: while 24% of 15–29-year-olds across OECD countries report no interest at all in politics, this figure rises to 31% among the same age group in Australia, a gap of seven percentage points above the OECD youth average (see Figure 1.4). These figures suggest that while Australians overall are not markedly less interested in politics, young Australians tend to be more disengaged than the OECD average. This finding underlines the importance of complementing compulsory voting laws with other levers available to government (e.g. civic education), as discussed in Chapter 2.
% of people reporting to be not at all interested in politics, by age group, 2022 or last year available
Source: OECD (2024[8]), Society at a Glance 2024: OECD Social Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/918d8db3-en.
Regarding participation outside of the electoral cycle, Australia performs well on a key driver of participation: trust that citizens’ input will be used. Across the OECD, just over 30% of Trust Survey respondents consider it likely that government would adopt the opinions expressed during a public consultation. In Australia, this share is around 11 percentage points higher (Figure 1.5). Low expectations of responsiveness tend to be a disincentive to participation OECD-wide, so Australia's relative advantage on this dimension is an asset.
Note: Countries to the right of the graph represent OECD accession countries for which data was available.
Source: OECD (2026[2]), OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2026 Results: Navigating Rising Expectations and New Horizons, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9eb63fec-en.
Yet, this advantage does not always convert into stronger participation outcomes. Only 7% of the OECD Trust Survey respondents in Australia reported having taken part in a public consultation in 2025, compared to 8% across the OECD. The fact that Australians are more likely than their peers to believe their input will matter, but as or less likely to provide it, suggests that the binding constraints could be related to awareness, accessibility, and relevance of opportunities provided (see the ‘Snapshot’ of Chapter 3).
Youth volunteering represents an area of comparative strength for Australia, whose volunteering rates are higher than the OECD average. Common focus areas for volunteering typically include sports, emergency or crisis response (e.g. firefighting, lifesaving), religion, social services and youth work. Countries with a dedicated national volunteering or civic service strategy in place, as is the case for Australia, tend to record higher rates of youth volunteering. For instance, on average, 28% of young people in such countries reported having volunteered, compared with 21% in countries without a national strategy (Gagliardi, Pérez-Raynaud and Robinson, 2024[26]). Australia's performance in this area Figure 1.6 in part reflects the enabling role that government can play in sustaining civic participation. In particular, the fact that young Australians volunteer at comparatively high rates suggests that lower political engagement among this cohort could reflect a preference for different forms of civic expression, rather than an absence of civic motivation. As Chapter 3 discusses, ensuring that participation opportunities are well-tailored to the needs and preferences of those they are intended to reach is key to translating that motivation into engagement through institutionalised channels across the life cycle.
The chart shows the share of people aged 15-29, 30-49 and 50+ who reported having volunteered time to an organisation in the previous month in 2023, or latest available year
Note: Data for Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Türkiye and the United States refer to 2022. Data for Estonia refer to 2021.
Source: OECD calculations based on Gallup World Poll (Database).
Non-institutionalised participation
Non-institutionalised participation refers to forms of civic engagement that occur outside formal government-designed channels, typically initiated by citizens, CSOs or social movements. The digital transition and the emergence of social media platforms have expanded the accessibility of civic engagement and reshaped how this form of participation is organised.
Participation in organised civil society is one of the key avenues for civic engagement. According to V-Dem data, Australia ranks 12th among OECD countries on the Civil Society Index (Figure 1.7), reflecting an environment in which citizens can freely associate and actively pursue civic goals. The index shows that after a slight decline between 2012 and 2013, participation in civil society has remained relatively steady in recent years, while CSO consultation by policymakers is shown to have increased significantly since 2024. This is a meaningful asset, as a robust civil society provides the organisational infrastructure through which citizens can organise around and advocate for shared interests and is an important enabling condition for participation more broadly, as discussed in Chapter 2.
Note: The Core Civil Society Participation Index measures the robustness of civil society, understood as its degree of autonomy from the state and the extent to which citizens freely and actively pursue their political and civic goals. The index also captures whether CSOs are routinely consulted by policymakers, the extent of public involvement in CSOs, the ability of women to participate, and whether candidate nomination for the legislature within parties is decentralised or conducted through primaries. The index ranges from 0 (low) to 1 (high). Aggregation: The index is constructed using point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model based on indicators of candidate selection (national/local; v2pscnslnl), CSO consultation (v2cscnsult), CSO participatory environment (v2csprtcpt), and CSO women’s participation (v2csgender).
Source: V-Dem (2026[27]), “V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v16” Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, https://doi.org/10.23696/vdemds26.
In contrast, Australia's performance across other non-institutionalised forms of participation is modestly below the OECD average. Posting or sharing political content on social media was reported by 13% of Australian respondents in 2025, two percentage points below the OECD average of 15%. Creating or signing a petition was reported by 18% of Australians, compared to an OECD average of 23%. Participation in demonstrations is also slightly lower in Australia than the OECD average, with 6% of Australians reporting to have participated in a protest in 2025, compared with 9% across the membership.
Overall, the findings across both institutionalised and non-institutionalised participation outcomes paint a nuanced picture of civic and democratic life in Australia. In several respects, Australia performs comparatively well: compulsory voting sustains high electoral turnout, civil society is comparatively robust, and public confidence that government will act on citizen input is notably higher than among peers. Yet, other patterns warrant attention. Political disengagement among younger Australians is more pronounced than in most OECD countries. Although perceptions of political efficacy or ‘voice’ are positive, participation in public consultations (see Chapter 3) fall below the OECD average. Participation in non-institutionalised civic engagement forms, e.g. petitions, social media, demonstrations, is also slightly lower than the OECD average.
These gaps suggest that there could be a mismatch between the channels and opportunities on offer and the ways in which Australians, particularly younger generations, prefer to engage. This does not imply that institutionalised participation should be favoured over other forms of civic engagement; rather, the two are complementary, and understanding how they relate to one another helps government identify where engagement is happening and where gaps remain. For government, this represents an opportunity: to better map and understand how civic engagement preferences are evolving, to foster the conditions in which different forms of civic engagement can flourish, and to ensure that institutionalised participation mechanisms are relevant, sufficiently visible, and can reach the full breadth of the population they are intended to serve. The chapters that follow examine what this means in practice, both for the enabling environment that shapes civic space (Chapter 2) and for the governance of citizen participation opportunities (Chapter 3).
Digitalisation is increasingly redefining the spaces in which public life takes place. It has profoundly reshaped the conditions under which different types of civic engagement operate across OECD countries. By lowering the barriers to collective action, digital technologies have enabled new forms of civic mobilisation and expanded opportunities for citizens to interact with public institutions. Governments are increasingly using digital tools to support participation in policymaking and service delivery, making engagement more accessible, including for geographically dispersed populations. At the same time, the rapid rise of digital technologies poses certain risks and governments face significant challenges in addressing these and ensuring safe and open digital environments. The cross-cutting impact of digitalisation is examined throughout the Review, including in relation to the impact of online hate speech on civic space (Chapter 2) and digital participation governance (Chapter 3).
In Australia, digitalisation has created new interfaces between citizens and government, particularly through service delivery systems and digital platforms. The country’s strong performance in the OECD Digital Government Index reflects advanced capabilities in digital service delivery and user-centred design, which provide a solid foundation for expanding digitally enabled participation (OECD, 2026[28]). The use of digital tools for participation is an area of growing focus for the Australian Government, particularly in exploring how these tools can evolve beyond supporting individual consultations towards enabling a more coherent and strategic participation approach. Importantly, and given digital opportunities deliver benefits only to the populations that can access and use them, addressing digital exclusion will be an imperative in this context. Indeed, across OECD countries, persistent gaps in connectivity, affordability, and digital skills continue to exist for older citizens, low-income households, populations in remote areas, and Indigenous groups (OECD, 2021[29]). Australia’s target of achieving a digital transition that works for all, including First Nations people (Closing the Gap Target 17), frames these efforts as a precondition for equal participation in public life.
The increasing transition of civic engagement into digital environments has been reshaping how citizens interact with each other and with public institutions. A growing share of public debate and civic expression now takes place on large-scale, privately owned digital platforms. While these spaces enable new forms of participation, the conditions required for constructive, and impactful civic interaction are not always met, raising concerns across OECD countries about risks related to polarisation and the fragmentation of public debate (OECD, forthcoming[30]).
These challenges have led researchers and policymakers to consider whether digital environments can be designed and governed in ways that more intentionally support democratic engagement and social cohesion. In this context, a growing body of research and policy debate points to the possibility of considering digital environments as a form of civic infrastructure (IDEA, 2026[31]) (McArthur and White, 2016[32]). This includes not only government-led participation platforms, but also the broader ecosystem in which citizens exchange views, form opinions and engage in public life. Emerging concepts such as “digital third spaces” (Box 1.4) highlight the possibility of creating environments that can sustain constructive interaction, build common ground and support democratic engagement beyond formal consultation processes.
Australia is well placed to explore this next generation of digital participation approaches, building on its strong institutional and technological foundations. Strengthening the integration of participation within digital government systems, improving coherence across platforms, and considering the role of more open, citizen-centred digital environments represent key opportunities for enhancing the government–citizen relationship. The case for leveraging Australia’s digital government expertise to support meaningful online citizen participation is discussed in Chapter 3. It explores how digital participation tools can be developed, procured and deployed as part of a broader digital participation infrastructure, which can in turn improve both the immediate outcomes and the long-term impact of citizen participation processes. While the discussion in Chapter 3 focuses on the integration of such infrastructure within the broader digital government ecosystem, these efforts could also represent a first step towards creating a more ambitious online civic infrastructure capable of sustaining constructive interaction, fostering common ground and supporting democratic engagement beyond formal consultation processes.
The concept of ‘third places’ refers to the informal settings that exist alongside the home (the "first place") and the workplace (the "second place"). These can include parks, libraries, town halls, sporting clubs, places of worship, and community organisations. Such places are increasingly recognised as part of the civic infrastructure that supports democratic life by creating opportunities for people from different social, cultural and political backgrounds to interact.
Research suggests that informal interactions with people holding different viewpoints can strengthen political tolerance and help counter polarisation. The OECD has drawn on the concept in its analysis of social connectedness, indicating that the decline of such spaces is among the structural drivers of decreasing face-to-face interaction across OECD countries.
While the informal public spaces that have historically supported social cohesion are in decline, no settled equivalent has fully emerged online. Research suggests that online platforms, including social media, can reproduce specific qualities associated with third places, but often do so in environments shaped by algorithmic curation and commercial incentives rather than civic interaction. This has contributed to growing interest in digital third spaces as a form of civic infrastructure that can support social connection, constructive exchange and shared community experiences, independent of the engagement-driven incentives that characterise many online platforms.
Australia has entered a period of increasingly complex public challenges from a position of strength: robust public institutions, a comparatively high-trust relationship with government and a vibrant civil society. Compulsory voting sustains electoral participation well above the norm for most democracies, and Australians are notably more confident than their peers that government will be responsive to public feedback.
Yet several structural tensions remain. Political disengagement among young Australians is more pronounced than in most peer countries. Formal civic membership in parties and trade unions has declined sharply. And engagement through petitions, social media, and demonstrations sits modestly below international benchmarks.
The pattern that emerges is not one of civic apathy, but of a potential misalignment between the participation channels governments offer and the ways citizens, particularly younger generations, would like to engage. This misalignment is relevant to trust outcomes. While aggregate trust in the federal government is comparatively high, the gap between Australians who feel they have a say in what government does and those who do not is among the largest in the OECD. This suggests that the benefits of Australia's comparatively strong starting position are not evenly shared across the population. These evolutions are placing different demands on public institutions, which are called to better listen, respond to, and secure broad base support for difficult policy decisions. Digitalisation deepens this challenge while simultaneously offering new tools to address it, provided issues of access, exclusion and safety are taken seriously.
Taken together, this suggests that the key challenge for Australia is not merely increasing opportunities for citizens and CSOs to participate in public life but ensuring participation mechanisms are more visible, accessible, and genuinely responsive to different segments of the Australian public while ensuring that the pre-conditions for meaningful participation are in place. Addressing this challenge requires a comprehensive perspective that considers civic space, participation and trust as interdependent dimensions of the government–citizen interface, and that pays greater attention to how participation is enabled, sustained and experienced in practice by all segments of the population.
The following chapters build on this understanding. Chapter 2 discusses specific civic space conditions that enable or constrain participation, including a focus on the enabling environment for civil society, freedom of assembly, hate speech and civic education as priority issues for Australia. Chapter 3 discusses how participation is organised and supported across the public sector, exploring governance frameworks, institutional capacities and a focus on digital tools. Together, these chapters provide a roadmap for strengthening the government–citizen relationship in Australia in an effort to increase trust and deliver better policies and services for the people of Australia.
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← 1. Citizen-centred reforms primarily refer to improving services and responsiveness to users. While distinct from digital participation, which enables citizens to engage in public decision making, Chapter 3 (Section 3.6) highlights opportunities to better connect these agendas.