The Australian Governance and Risk Management Forum 2026: Key takeaways

The Governance and Risk Management Forum

In May, The Governance Institute of Australia brought together company directors, company secretaries, and senior risk and governance leaders for the Governance and Risk Management Forum 2026 – NSW and Queensland.

The purpose of the forum is to discuss how organisations can build stronger governance and risk practices during periods of pressure and change. As an integrity expert, I’ve worked with whistleblowers for more than 20 years, and been attending the forum for 10 of those years.

The agenda covered stakeholder management, operational resilience, psychosocial risk, AI and financial crime. Different topics, but one common thread: control. Who has it, where it is weak, and how quickly organisations can see when it is failing.

For me, the strongest message was that governance is moving away from periodic assurance towards live management. Policies, audits and reporting packs still matter, but they are no longer enough on their own. I noted four main takeaways.

Key takeaways

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1. Risk culture cannot stay retrospective

One of the most thought-provoking topics of conversation was a challenge to the compliance mindset still common in corporate Australia.

Too many organisations remain static. They look backwards through compliance audits, then treat that view as current reality.

That approach is increasingly removed from current needs. Evolving needs to deal with AI, financial crime, regulatory scrutiny and evolving workplace conditions means a contemporary governance approach. A board that waits for a quarterly report may already be looking at an old problem.

My takeaway was simple: boards and executives need to manage risk in real time. That means better data, faster escalation and stronger links between operational teams and decision-makers. It also means accepting that culture is a live risk signal, rather than a compliance topic to be reviewed once a year.

The organisations that cope best will be those that can identify weak signals early. A rise in complaints. Repeated friction in one team. Delays in closing investigations. Fear around speaking up. These are governance issues long before they become public failures.

2. Psychosocial risk is now a board issue

The discussion on psychosocial risk was one of the most important parts of the forum.

Australia’s workplace health and safety framework has become more prescriptive on psychosocial hazards over recent years. Speakers highlighted a striking trend: mental health conditions within the Australian workers’ compensation scheme have risen by nearly 60% over the last 25 years. Mental health issues are also estimated to cost the Australian economy $70 billion a year, with projections suggesting that cost could double by 2030.

Those figures should change how leaders think about workplace conduct.

Psychosocial risk is often discussed through the language of wellbeing, yet the drivers are frequently structural. Poor job design. Weak management skills. Under-resourced teams. Excessive work volume. Bullying. Unclear reporting lines. Perceived unfairness.

This connects directly to Veremark’s recent discussion with Tony Morris on psychosocial hazards. Screening can act as a control at the point of hiring. It can help organisations make safer decisions about who they bring into the business. Veremark’s background checks in Australia are part of that risk framework.

Yet screening cannot fix poor systems after someone joins. If the work environment is badly designed, if leaders are poorly trained, or if employees believe reporting concerns will harm their career, risk will build.

That is why ethical leadership matters. Psychological safety does not come from a slogan. It comes from managers who know how to handle pressure, respond to workplace issues, set behavioural standards and act fairly when concerns are raised.

Productivity weaknesses creates conduct pressure

The economic session added another layer.

The economist described a two-speed Australian economy. Some sectors, including technology, telecommunications, transport and finance, are improving output per person. Others, including mining, energy, infrastructure, healthcare and education, are seeing productivity decline.

My point on this is that macro conditions do not stay outside the workplace. Cost-of-living pressure, flat wages, promotion bottlenecks and perceived unfairness all affect internal culture. When people believe effort is not recognised, or that reward decisions are opaque, workplace trust weakens.

That does not automatically create serious misconduct. It does create conditions where small issues can grow in size, which result in weaker communication between employees and therefore weaker productivity in getting things done. 

A pay dispute becomes a fairness complaint. A resourcing issue becomes a mental health risk. A poor manager becomes a reason people leave. An ignored concern becomes a whistleblowing matter.

For boards, this means productivity and culture cannot be treated as separate agendas. Operational pressure changes behaviour. It affects how managers lead, how employees raise concerns and how quickly an organisation sees a growing crisis. 

3. Technology should remove silos and create one system

The productivity discussion also speaks directly to our work at Veremark.

Many organisations still manage staff hiring, safety concerns, investigations and employee complaints through fragmented systems. A spreadsheet in HR. Another in compliance. A whistleblowing tool. Case notes in a google file management system. Safety reports in a WH&S system.

That fragmentation slows response and weakens board and management oversight. It also makes it harder to see patterns. One complaint may look isolated. Ten complaints across different channels may show a particular pattern that can be rectified. 

Veremark’s speak up solution is designed to give organisations a safer and more simplistic way to receive concerns. Its value is strongest when analytics, triage and case management are treated as part of a wider system. When trends are holistic and reported in the necessary detail to the right levels inside the organisation. Boards and executives get the right ‘level’ of information to act effectively and make more informed decisions.  

The aim is simple: reduce manual and silo’d workflows that should converge, encourage people to raise concerns so the organisation has an earlier opportunity to improve and give leaders a more complete view of workplace culture, therefore help them to build more productive and therefore trusted workplaces. 

That is also why we have written about the importance of turning reports into results through better compliance management. A reporting channel only builds trust if employees can see that concerns are handled properly.

4. High-trust organisations behave differently

A stakeholder management session offered a useful frame for the whole forum. Research into the public sector identified common traits of high-trust organisations: transparency, clear communication, respectful interaction, responsiveness and safe avenues for reporting and feedback.

These are operating habits.

Transparency means people understand decisions. Clear communication means leaders do not hide behind process. Respectful interaction means high expectations does not excuse poor conduct. Responsiveness means concerns do not sit unanswered. Safe feedback means employees can raise issues without fear and the organisation can learn and grow.

This aligns closely with Veremark’s workplace trust story. Trust is built before hiring, through selecting staff that are a good fit with their employer. It is tested during employment, through leadership and culture. It is proven when something goes wrong, through the way an organisation responds.

Our recent article on the trust problem nobody wants to talk about makes this point clearly: trust depends on the systems that sit behind the promise.

In Summary: The boardroom question has changed

My main takeaway from the Governance and Risk Management Forum 2026 was that governance needs to become more proactive.

Boards should still ask whether policies exist. They should also ask sharper questions.

Can employees raise concerns safely? Do we know where conduct issues are evolving? How quickly do we respond? Are managers trained to reduce psychosocial risk? Are we relying on audits when we need earlier indicators? Do our systems show culture as it is, or only as it is reported upwards?

The organisations that answer those questions honestly will be better placed to manage risk. They will also be better placed to build more trusted and productive workplaces.

Governance is no longer only about showing an audit trail after the event. It is about seeing the early warning signs, acting fairly and building the kind of trust that holds when people need it the most.