Australia doesn’t have a shortage of climate, local food and resilience strategies. For example, the university of Sydney legal team mapped 2,266 local-government food policies and plans across NSW and Victoria and found the same priorities repeating across councils (University of Sydney, Law & Food Systems Lab, Policy Database assessment, 2024). The ideas aren’t the problem; the translation is. We need fewer PDFs and more living patterns in everyday life. By “patterns,” I mean reusable design moves that are human-scale solutions to recurring problems, drawn from 1970s architect Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language. They’re not rigid plans but living templates you can adapt and combine so good practice spreads.
At the same time, Canberra has launched big resilience funds. The Disaster Ready Fund (DRF) commits up to $1 billion over five years from 1 July 2023 (Australian Government, National Emergency Management Agency, DRF Program Guidelines, 2023). Before that, the Preparing Australia Program was $600 million for risk reduction (Australian Government, Home Affairs/NEMA, Preparing Australia Program Overview, 2021). Are these necessary? Yes, absolutely. The trouble is the money still arrives as big, stop-start programs routed through state channels which are paperwork-heavy and practice-light, so we end up with glossy program sheets and thin local muscle memory. So why don’t we flip it? By reserving a small, steady slice for place-based facilitation, prototyping, and pattern-writing on the ground, so people can try, learn, and repeat safely, creating true local capability, beauty and resilience.
Add to that an ongoing appetite for external advice, federal consultancy contracts approaching $1 billion in 2024-25 despite pledges to reduce reliance (Commonwealth procurement data; ANAO briefings, 2024–25), and it’s easy to see why many communities feel resilience happens on paper. Reports multiply while practice stalls. Meanwhile, Tasmania’s ‘local government reform’ debate is consumed by boundary maps and amalgamation talk rather than the everyday practices, skills, and permissions communities and councils need to host small experiments and build & enable local capability.
What if we funded patterns, not PDFs?
A pattern is a small, hosted experiment that takes one sentence from a policy and turns it into a safe, try‑it‑now activity that people can run next month in a street, a hall, or on a farm. For example, you might set up a seed library with a simple crop‑swap that runs like a regular class; host a shared evening meal and organise a roster for a local food co-op; or in bushfire prone areas walk the neighbourhood together to tidy verges, check access points, and, where appropriate and led by a local knowledge holder, carry out a careful cultural burn that builds understanding and reduces risk. Each pattern stays small, has clear edges about time, numbers, noise and care, uses only a few light measures to see what changed, and finishes with short notes that others can follow. If it helps, you write a one‑page ‘how we did it’ so the next street can repeat it tomorrow.
Photography of Magical Farm Herbs and Cart with a Heart by Ness Vandebourgh Photography
This is Con Viv, “with life”: keeping culture (freedom), rights (fairness), and economy (reciprocity) in rhythm (Threefold social theory; Con Viv fieldwork, 2010–2025). And it’s not theory, we’re doing it at Magical Farm: prototyping a cob herb-drying shed before a bigger barn; running a seed library that grew into a crop-swap; hosting regenerative workshops that build neighbour and community capability. Each trial is documented so others can repeat, adapt, and federate (link up as a commons network) enhancing local community (Magical Farm prototype notes, Regen Era Design 2024-2025).
The point is simple: we already spend enough to make the kind of work I am describing normal. The question is what slice of those budgets pays for local capability, facilitation, prototyping, and pattern-writing, so experiments can run safely and repeatedly without bureaucratic drag? The DRF’s billion could reserve even 1–2% as a Patterns Fund to seed hundreds of micro-trials nationally. Councils could match from existing climate/adaptation, community development, and economic development portfolios (City of Hobart Annual Plan & Budget 2025–26; Kingborough Operational Estimates 2025–26; Huon Valley Annual Plan & Budget 2025–26). States could underwrite insurance templates and light governance so trials are easy to host and easy to assess.
Would consultants still have a role? Sure, but as pattern stewards, not report factories: helping councils package what worked into simple, copy-ready guides; building the national pantry of patterns any town can draw from. Pay for reusable know-how and skills not shelfware. If this sounds small, that’s the point. Small is a safety feature. It’s fast, neighbourly, and honest. A micro-trial that doesn’t help can be retired without fuss; one that works can spread sideways, not from a press release but from a WhatsApp group and a one-page host sheet.
So let’s ask the only questions that matter right at this crucial point: Will we keep funding documents, or will we fund the ability to try things? Will we keep outsourcing resilience or will we grow local practices: the skills to host, measure lightly, and share patterns? Australia doesn’t need another plan to say “community matters.” It needs a permission culture that makes everyday experiments ordinary, with enough budget to back the people who host them, the templates that de-risk them, and the notes that help them travel.
Stop funding PDFs. Start funding patterns.
Dr Emily Samuels-Ballantyne is a regenerative designer, writer, and regenerative farmer based in southern Tasmania. Through Regen Era Design and Magical Farm Tasmania, she develops Con Viv, practical, hosted experiments that turn policy into everyday patterns. Her work focuses on community economies, convivial governance, and low-overhead ways to grow capability street by street. She led the award winning Huon Valley Food Hub project, which implemented Con Viv in practice.
Endnotes
Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).
University of Sydney, Law & Food Systems Lab, Policy Database assessment (NSW & Victoria), 2024.
Australian Government, National Emergency Management Agency, Disaster Ready Fund Program Guidelines, 2023.
Australian Government, Home Affairs/NEMA, Preparing Australia Program Overview, 2021.
Commonwealth procurement data summary; ANAO briefings on consultancy spend, 2024–25