When Labor was re-elected in May, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used his acceptance speech to describe the type of country he wanted to lead.

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He spoke of how the Australian people had voted for fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all: "For the strength to show courage in adversity and kindness to those in need. And Australians have voted for a future that holds true to these values."

Noble sentiments from the prime minister.

But can this translate into real change in government organisations? How much work do they have to do to live up to Albanese's mantra of fairness and kindness towards those in need?

It is important our public institutions, such as the Australian Public Service, are kind, even when they are deciding who can access limited public resources.

We conducted a review of academic research on organisational kindness to understand how organisations can be more generous to those they interact with.

We discovered public service processes often lack kindness, which causes distress and sometimes significant harm. Many people would be familiar with unkind interactions with public services that should be there to serve us, but sometimes make us feel like an enemy.

Kindness has positive benefits not just for the people being served, but for organisations themselves. Our research has found kindness contributes to profit, productivity, performance and favourable community perceptions.

A kinder organisation is also a more trusted one, which is essential for any public service - funded by the public - to retain legitimacy.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a case in point.

Other research we have conducted shows individuals find it hard to apply for the NDIS.

In part this stemmed from previous traumatic experiences with accessing government agencies, which resulted in a lack of trust........

© Canberra Times