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Every day, decisions about poverty, housing, data and services are made in rooms the people affected never see. Open government is about opening those doors: making information available by default, giving people a real say, and making sure someone checks whether promises were kept. NCOSS now has a seat in one of those rooms.
The Challenge
For the community services sector, trust in government is not an abstract idea. It shapes whether people walk through the door of a service, whether communities engage with policy, and whether reforms reach the people they were designed for.
Only just over half of Australians (53 per cent) trust government to do what is right. Australians on the lowest incomes now sit in distrust territory, and the trust gap between the highest and lowest earners has more than doubled since 2012.1
Part of the reason is that the people most affected by public decisions are the least likely to be asked about them. When independent reviewers assessed Australia’s last Open Government National Action Plan, they found a compressed timeline had left too little room for public engagement, particularly with marginalised communities.2 Decisions get made without the people who live with the consequences, and without the organisations that work alongside them every day.
The Facts
- Australia joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in 2015. As a member, it must produce a national action plan of commitments to deliver over two or four years, and each plan is reviewed by an Independent Reporting Mechanism. OGP is a multilateral initiative that aims to make government more transparent, empower citizens, fight corruption and use new technology to strengthen governance.3
- Australia has released three national action plans. The third was published on 15 December 2023 and concluded on 31 December 2025. It contained eight commitments across six ministerial portfolios.4
- On 8 May 2026 the Australian Government appointed six new civil society members to the Open Government Forum, with Dr Mark Zirnsak as civil society co-chair. An equal number of government representatives sit on the Forum, with Deputy Secretary Sarah Chidgey PSM of the Attorney-General’s Department as government co-chair.5
- The Forum is co-creating Australia’s Fourth National Action Plan (NAP4), which will set out commitments over a two-year timeframe. Any member of the public can suggest ideas for commitments; the Forum considers them, and government approves the final plan.6
- Eighty-one per cent of Australians say government has an obligation to bridge divides and build trust between groups. Thirty-six per cent think it is doing that well.7
Our Position
We believe government information should be open by default. People affected by poverty and disadvantage should be at the centre of the policies that shape their lives. And community organisations should be free to say what they see without fear of losing funding.
The Open Government Partnership gives those beliefs a national mechanism. It is one of the few places where civil society and government sit as equals, agree on specific commitments, and are checked on delivery by an independent body. Shared authorship, public commitments and independent review are how trust gets rebuilt.
Our seat at the table
In May 2026 NCOSS CEO Cara Varian was appointed to Australia’s Open Government Forum, joining a group of civil society leaders who will work directly with government on transparency, integrity, public participation and reform over the next two years. The Forum will develop, implement and monitor NAP4 with the Attorney-General’s Department.8
The seat matters because of what the community services sector sees. Our members sit between government and the people it serves. They know which programs reach people and which stall on the way, where a form or a process shuts someone out, and how decisions about data, funding and consultation play out in a person’s life. Cara brings that perspective into a room that has too often been filled with policy specialists alone.
“You can’t rebuild trust from the top down. A multilateral partnership with both civil society and government doing the hard work together is how we bridge that gap.”
Cara Varian, CEO, NCOSS9
Members have already told us where the pressure points are. Data collection and use is high on the list, especially as government uptake of AI grows: what is collected, how it is stored, who can access it and how secure it is. Those questions shape who gets seen, who gets supported and who gets left behind.10
What we are bringing to the table
Working with partner organisations across the community services sector, NCOSS has put forward ideas for NAP4 commitments. Our current priorities are:
Policy priority
| Description |
|---|
Count poverty and publish the result
A national participation architecture that funds and structures the involvement of people with lived experience, and a presumption of open engagement in government consultation, with confidentiality agreements used only by strict exception.
Put affected people at the centre of decisions
A national participation architecture that funds and structures the involvement of people with lived experience, and a presumption of open engagement in government consultation, with confidentiality agreements used only by strict exception.
Open data communities can use
Small-area data on disadvantage released in forms communities and services can work with, a two-way data partnership between government and the not-for-profit sector, and Indigenous Data Sovereignty built into how government collects and shares data about First Nations peoples.
Transparent and fair funding for community services
Published funding, indexation and commissioning timelines, clear public reporting on outcomes, and legal protection for the sector’s freedom to advocate.
Fair and accountable technology
Transparency in automated decision-making that affects people’s payments and services, and a digital inclusion guarantee so no one loses access to government because they are offline.
Get involved
The Forum wants to hear from the public, and so do we. If your organisation sees a transparency, participation or accountability problem getting in the way of your work or your community, tell us and we will bring it into the room. Opportunities to contribute to Fourth National Action Plan are published on the Attorney-General’s Department website as co-creation progresses.11
To share your ideas or for more information, please contact:
References
- Edelman Trust Institute, 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer: Australia Report, 2026, pp. 7 and 38. ↩
- Open Government Partnership, Independent Reporting Mechanism, Australia Action Plan Review 2023–2025, 2024. ↩
- Attorney-General’s Department, Australia’s Open Government Partnership; Attorney-General’s Department, Australia’s Third National Action Plan;Attorney-General’s Department, Australia’s Open Government Forum. ↩
- Attorney-General’s Department, Australia’s Open Government Partnership; Attorney-General’s Department, Australia’s Fourth National Action Plan. Commitment count from Open Government Partnership, Australia Action Plan Review 2023–2025. ↩
- Attorney-General, Appointment of Open Government Forum members, media release, 8 May 2026. ↩
- Attorney-General’s Department, Australia’s Fourth National Action Plan. ↩
- Edelman Trust Institute, 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer: Australia Report, 2026, p. 28. ↩
- NCOSS, Social service sector gains seat on federal open government forum, media release, 27 May 2026. ↩
- NCOSS, Social service sector gains seat on federal open government forum, 27 May 2026. ↩
- NCOSS, Social service sector gains seat on federal open government forum, 27 May 2026. ↩
- Attorney-General’s Department, Australia’s Fourth National Action Plan. ↩