By Zack Burton, A/g Manager | Engagement and Communications Branch
Engagement and partnership are fundamental to how the Australian Public Service delivers for Australians.
The challenges we work on are rarely confined to a single agency, sector or jurisdiction. Whether we are designing policy, delivering services, regulating markets or responding to emerging challenges, our ability to understand the people and organisations affected by our work is critical to getting it right.
That idea was at the heart of the National APS – Business Engagement Roundtable Series, co-convened by the Australian Public Service Commission and the Business Council of Australia.
Between December 2025 and April 2026, we brought APS and business leaders together for four roundtables in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. The concept was deliberately simple. Get people in the same room, create the space for an open conversation, and learn from each other's experiences.
The first roundtable in Sydney established many of the themes that would travel with us throughout the series. Participants discussed the structures and processes that support good engagement and the behaviours behind them. Empathy, curiosity, willingness to listen and a focus on shared outcomes were common examples. There was a strong emphasis on building trusted relationships and creating more opportunities for people in government and business to understand how the other operates.
Taking the conversation around the country was important. Each roundtable brought together a different mix of APS and business leaders and allowed us to hear different perspectives, including experiences shaped by local industries and operating environments.
In Adelaide, the conversation explored how we move from consultation as a process towards partnership as a way of working. Participants spoke about the value of engaging early and face to face, creating opportunities to identify risks and opportunities sooner, and maintaining dialogue beyond a single consultation. The discussion also reinforced something deceptively straightforward in engagement – if you ask people for their views, you need to close the loop and show how their contribution was considered.
The following day in Brisbane, we heard similar themes through a different lens. Discussions explored the importance of establishing a shared understanding of the problem before jumping to solutions, as well as understanding the different constraints under which government and business operate. Participants pointed to the value of practical experience, including visits to workplaces and operational sites, as a way of building that understanding.
Our final roundtable in Perth brought the National Series together and reinforced the value of engaging directly with people in different places and contexts.
Across four cities, what stood out to me was the consistency of the fundamentals.
Good engagement starts early and its ongoing, not a single transaction. It requires clarity about what you are trying to achieve and what people can influence. And, importantly, it depends on relationships and trust.
For the APS, that matters because engagement isn't something separate from delivery. It is part of how we deliver.
As public servants, we bring expertise in policy, regulation, programs and services. But we do not have every perspective or every answer. Businesses similarly operate within their own commercial realities, responsibilities and timeframes. Creating opportunities to better understand those different contexts help us ask better questions, identify problems earlier and to iterate for more practical approaches.
That is what engagement and partnership look like in practice. They are capabilities we develop through experience, curiosity and, sometimes, simply making the time to sit around the same table and listen.
The National APS – Business Engagement Roundtable Series gave us four opportunities to do exactly that. The challenge now is to keep those good practices going.