Diversity and inclusion are worth billions to Australia’s economy. But unlocking them requires more than counting heads.
When you walk into a room full of people, do you think about the cultural diversity of who is in it? Yasmin Poole does.
As an activist, speaker, writer and Rhodes Scholar, Yasmin Poole became attuned to who belongs through witnessing discrimination against her migrant mother. She, like so many other people of colour, notices when spaces – from workplaces to Parliament – are not diverse.
But for people who are Caucasian, the cultural make-up of a group may not be among the things they notice first, Poole said during a recent panel discussion: Deconstructing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Reconstructing Respect.
It may be a small observation, but it’s one with profound implications. The simple act of walking into a room can create a ‘silent burden’ for many: scanning for safety, wondering if they’ll belong, and be respected sufficiently to be heard. That burden often follows people onto train platforms, job interviews and into the workplace, and impacts their health and wellbeing in all aspects of their lives.
Australia’s sense of belonging is slipping, costing the economy billions. The Scanlon Foundation Research Institute found that while overall social cohesion remained steady over the past three years, only 46% of people felt a great sense of belonging in Australia in 2025, though these numbers are nuanced. A sense of belonging drops with each generation, ranging from 77% for Baby Boomers to 31% for Gen Z, although this too changes when considering intersectional impacts for gender, socioeconomic and other identity-based factors.
When people feel they don’t belong, the cost isn’t only personal. It’s financial.
Roba Goreishi, Penultimate-year Economics and Advanced Mathematics student at UNSW and Senior University Ambassador in the Student Equity team, believes a zero-sum mindset is behind much of what erodes belonging.
“A lot of that stems from the binary thinking that if someone has a job, they're taking my job or if someone has a house, they're taking my house,” she said during the panel discussion.
“Whereas we know productivity and benefits are maximised when we're all working together to create a cohesive society.”
Creating a more inclusive society could unlock billions of dollars annually. Improving the outcomes for migrant workers could be worth $1.2 billion yearly, according to Deloitte Access Economics research. Removing barriers for neurodivergent Australians and people with disability and chronic health conditions could mean $84.2 billion annually in economic and social benefit. And boosting women’s participation in the workforce could add another $128 billion to the economy over 10 years.
“Cognitive diversity and collective knowledge lead to better problem solving and generally increases wellbeing,” said Deborah Travers-Wolf, UNSW’s online DEI program Convenor and the panel’s moderator. “However, it requires inclusion, and that is of the kind where leaders, colleagues and the culture enable diverse knowledge to contribute to deliver the diversity dividend.”
Australia is one of the most diverse societies in the world. And as such, it has a significant untapped opportunity, Travers-Wolf pointed out. But diversity alone doesn’t create value without inclusion and belonging. It requires a thoughtful and intentional approach that recognises the often-uncomfortable complexities of these issues.
So how do we create the change? Experts in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) share three areas leaders can build workplaces and communities where difference is a strength.
People hold multiple identities simultaneously, from race and gender to religion and profession. Some are visible, and some are invisible.
Recognising the overlapping identities in each other is one of the first steps to reducing conflict, said Professor Josh Keller, School of Management and Governance.
“A study from Northern Ireland looked at the role of identity and relations between conflicting groups,” he shared. “It found that contact with each other was not enough. What mattered more was the extent to which they had overlapping identities.”
The role of identity also plays a significant role in managing psychosocial risk which is a key priority for safe, respectful and inclusive interactions. When cultural identity, for example, isn’t considered within a hierarchical workplace it can create an unsafe environment according to Associate Professor Carlo Caponecchia, Associate Dean Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, UNSW Faculty of Science.
“We need to be thinking about how hierarchies and different power dynamics stop people in workplaces from feeling safe to talk about simple workplace issues,” he said during the panel discussion.
“Having a really steep hierarchy can have impacts on whether and how people speak up about concerns, and that has been shown to have effects on operational and workplace safety.”
He urged organisations to think about how they can apply systems, processes and frameworks to broader social challenges just like they do to physical safety concerns.
There are multiple, complex elements at play within a diverse society, including multiple identities and systems of power. Thinking about how these intersect, rather than looking at each in isolation, needs to be at the heart of policy design and workplace approaches, Poole said.
“If you are a refugee, and/or a woman of colour in this country, you may be experiencing not just interpersonal racism, but you may be also having visa precarity, which means that you can't speak up when you're being exploited,” she said.
“You may be working in casualised work. You may be trying to balance that with taking care of your family with additional cultural obligations. It's thinking about that in advance.”
Many organisations are not sure how to create meaningful DEI initiatives, often ending up reducing these to a numbers exercise or affinity groups. This can highlight difference rather than offering strategic value.
Poole urged leaders to start by examining what is happening structurally that prevents a workplace from being representative and diverse.
“We need to stop assuming that a workplace is apolitical or neutral and think about how these norms and values show up,” she said.
“How can we evolve that in a way that builds something together across different identities? Rather than measuring how many people of colour we have in an organisation, let’s think about how we’re measuring racism.”
As humans, we prefer solutions that require a single answer and minimum effort to achieve our goals.
But DEI carries an inherent paradox within it, which requires optimising two potentially competing priorities, such as valuing uniqueness and wanting to belong. Accepting that these need to be complementary, rather than discarding one for the other is what’s called a paradox mindset.
“It’s when we recognise that the trade-offs we have to make are in fact false choices,” Keller said.
“We need to wrestle with both perspectives. We've found with having a paradox mindset, leads to creative and innovative solutions that may in fact solve both issues.”
The Scanlon Foundation Research Institute’s data shows this paradox at work. Young Australians report a lower sense of belonging, but their sense of acceptance is significantly higher than older Australians. For people over 55, the reverse is true.
In other words, the people who feel most at home are often the least open to others joining them, and the people most open feel the least at home.
There’s no simple answer, and Anthea Hancocks, CEO of the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute, says there’s also no finish line.
“It’s a process and it never ends,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that there isn’t conflict or that everybody needs to be homogenous.”
Keller agreed. “Even when you do the most effort to help one or two groups, you're never going to be able to help when it comes to exclusion for all groups,” he said. “The idea is to continue to tackle that issue regardless of what you think that one solution was at one point in time.”
And as the moderator, Deb Travers-Wolf highlighted, many solutions that support one group, actually support all. Take workplace flexibility for example. It benefits everyone, not just carers who are commonly women.
Learning to sit with that discomfort and recognising there’s no easy answer is part of the work.
So where does that leave organisations? There are a few guiding principles which can support progress for all.
Disadvantage is contextual, so it’s often not obvious who might be experiencing it. Many people of colour and those who have experienced disadvantage already notice who’s in the room and who isn’t, who has the mic and who doesn’t. Poole’s challenge is for everyone else to see it too.
Rather than tick boxing who “is” in the room, she asks everyone to think about whose voice is missing – and whose opinions are being silenced simply by them not being a part of the conversation.
“Practise. It's like a muscle when it comes to an equity lens,” she said. “When you walk into spaces, think about whose perspective may be relevant to this that we're not capturing.”
This same approach should apply to systems too. If a team or an organisation lacks diversity, Poole urged leaders to ask why.
Because the silent burden doesn’t get lighter on its own. It gets lighter when it’s shared, when we’re all paying attention to who’s missing from the room. So, if you do just one thing differently, make it that.
The Deconstructing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Reconstructing Respect panel discussion was part of UNSW’s 8th annual 2026 Diversity Festival.
Thank you to our moderator, Deb Travers-Wolf, who convenes UNSW’s Graduate Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion, Rhiannon Tout, EDI Project Officer, UNSW Business School, and to our panellists for a safe, inclusive and thought-provoking session.
The discussion explored how safety, respect and belonging are experienced differently, and why meaningful change requires paradox thinking through an intersectional lens and a willingness to examine the systems and environments in which people participate.
“It is easier for some people to be able to speak up and to have certain conversations than it is for others, because experiences are not equal.”
Deborah Travers-Wolf
Convenor, UNSW’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program
"You can't create belonging for somebody else. Belonging is a perception. It's a very individual thing and it takes time."
Anthea Hancocks
CEO, Scanlon Foundation Research Institute
“Engage in conversations with empathy and perspective taking. There is no deficit for empathy regardless of who the speakers and listeners are.”
Professor Josh Keller
School of Management and Governance, UNSW Business School
“What does it look like to think intersectionally at the very beginning rather than allowing groups to be harmed, marginalised, hurt, and then trying to clean it up?"
Yasmin Poole
Rhodes Scholar, writer and advocate
“The core idea in human factors is that we are about changing systems, equipment and environments, rather than changing the person."
Associate Professor Carlo Caponecchia
Associate Dean Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, UNSW Faculty of Science
"If [a person feels] unsafe returning to work, that's one less member of the workforce, one less diverse thinker, one less engineer contributing to a productive society.
Productivity is lost when we have this idea that there's a single pie and a finite number of slices for people to take."
Roba Goreishi
Penultimate-year UNSW Economics and Advanced Mathematics student, Senior University Ambassador
UNSW Student Equity team