Join
AES
Join
AES
Contact
Us
Contact
Us
I’ll admit it—I’ve done it too.
Here I am in 2015 with Greg Hunt, former Minister of the Environment, and Mark Hibbert, President of the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand, as we discussed the implementation of the National Clean Air Agreement. II shared the photo with our members as an update on the work underway.
Here's the thing: you get the meeting, you get the photo, you post it on LinkedIn. You want your members to see that you’re in the room — that your organisation has the relationships that matter.
It’s understandable. And it’s not entirely wrong. But if the photo is the only outcome of your government relations activity, you have a problem — even if your board hasn't called it yet.
“Government doesn’t remember associations that show up. It remembers the ones that show up with something to say.”
Most established associations don’t have an access problem. They can get a meeting. They have the networks, the profile, the history of engagement. What they often lack is the internal clarity to make that access count.
I’ve seen it repeatedly. An association secures a meeting with a minister or a senior departmental official. Everyone is energised. And then, in the room, the conversation drifts. The association’s position isn’t crisp. The ask isn’t clear. The organisation leaves with a warm handshake, but the follow-up never comes.
Government moves toward organisations that make its job easier — associations that arrive with a clear, defensible position, evidence to back it, and member backing. They move away from organisations that are still working out what they think.
Before you walk into any minister’s office, your organisation needs to have done the internal work. That means a policy framework — not a wish list, not a list of concerns, but a structured set of positions that your Board has endorsed and your members understand.
That framework needs to answer some hard questions. Which issues sit genuinely within your mandate? Where does your sector speak with one voice — and where does it not? What can you defend under pressure, on the record, over a full parliamentary cycle? What will you not advocate for, even if some members want you to?
These aren’t questions you can resolve in a pre-meeting briefing. They require deliberate process: member consultation, Board deliberation, clear documentation, and honest acknowledgment of where consensus doesn’t exist. Skipping this step doesn’t save time. It costs credibility — and credibility, once lost with the government, is slow to rebuild.
There’s another dimension to the minister photo that rarely gets discussed: political risk. Publicly associating your organisation with a particular minister — or a particular government — is a positioning decision, whether you intend it that way or not.
Governments change. Ministers move. Your members sit across the political spectrum. The associations with the most durable government relationships are usually the quietest about them publicly. Their influence operates across political cycles, not within one. They’re seen as a serious, non-partisan voice — which is exactly why government listens.
That doesn’t mean you never communicate your advocacy activity to members. It means you frame it around outcomes, not access. “We met with Minister X and here’s what we secured” is a very different statement from “Great to meet Minister X today.” One demonstrates influence. The other demonstrates a diary entry.
Before your next government engagement, put this to your Board: are we pursuing advocacy — or the appearance of advocacy? It’s not a comfortable question. But the most effective association leaders I’ve worked with ask it regularly.
The organisations that consistently get heard by the government share a few things. Their positions are clear and stable. Their members are aligned. Their Board understands its role: to set direction, not manage relationships. And they follow up. Every time.
Before your next minister’s meeting — five foundation questions:
The photo isn’t wrong. Post it by all means — but make sure it’s the footnote to a serious piece of work, not the headline.
Author: Nick Koerbin April 2026.
"What an undecided member needs isn't another email — it's a conversation."
How we help membership based, not-for-profit associations now and into the future.
.jpg)
