Listening Tour Week 5: QLD and TAS
28 April - 2 May
Community Power, Local Leadership and the Long Road to Change
Across Week 5 of the Listening Tour in Queensland and Lutruwita/Tasmania, one truth rang loud and clear: the most enduring solutions are led by communities, grounded in lived experience, and built on trust earned over time.
From Cape York Institute in Cairns championing Indigenous-led policy solutions, to food security projects in Brighton in Lutruwita/Tasmania, we heard real change is already happening, it’s just not always being recognised, funded or supported sustainably.
Our Journey Map:
QLD: Cairns | Yarrabah | Stradbroke Island | Deception Bay | Inala | Gladstone | Bundaberg
TAS: Burnie | Launceston | Derwent | Brighton
Powerful Words That Stayed with Us:
“We don’t speak government.”
“Co-design is too weak a word for what we do.”
“It’s not about asking for more money but for agency.”
“Leadership starts in the family.”
“Providers have become bigger than the communities they serve.”
“We are embedded in the community, we live our lives with them.”
“Make it their heart and their idea, then they will run with it.”
Community insight: what works
Across diverse geographies and demographics we heard a unified call: recognise and fund what already works. Communities are building trust, shifting narratives and bridging gaps, often without formal recognition or long-term investment. Relationships are the infrastructure, and we are seeing a rise where youth voices are either leading change, or stepping forward to do it. Local governance models are reshaping the systems that have long ignored their knowledge. People aren’t waiting; they’re doing, and they’re asking, “when will systems catch up?”
Moments that mattered
Young people in Brighton are shaping their own governance and recruiting youth workers who reflect their values.
The Pacifica community in Deception Bay is stepping into child protection roles - unfunded but unwavering community care.
Cape York Institute showing 94% success in school completion through Indigenous-led approaches.
Volunteers in Burnie building community capacity through roles that span service user to leader.
The Brighton Food Hub, started around a kitchen table, now supporting 20,000 people a year.
Yarrabah youth stepping into intergenerational leadership, driven by culture, strength and purpose.
Top reflections
Place-based work is preventive by nature, yet funded as if it’s reactive.
Volunteers are sustaining systems that would otherwise collapse, this is not sustainable.
Local governance and community voice are essential, not optional.
If we don’t shift power, we risk losing the very backbone of the communities that are already delivering the change we seek.
What we are seeing and hearing is that many programs are still shaped by what systems find easy to deliver, not what communities say they need. This disconnect leads to duplication and fatigue.
This week we were reminded that change does not arrive by invitation from government or funding bodies, it is built resolutely by people who love their place. The communities we visited are not only asking to be heard, they’re showing the way forward. The challenge is how to invest in trust, and scale what we know already works.