Think Systemically, Act Locally: Reflections from the 2026 Welcoming Australia Symposium

From 19th – 21st May, hundreds of people from across the country gathered on Kaurna Country and tuning in online from across the globe, to wrestle with a deceptively simple question:

Is it possible? Is it possible to advance communities across a vast continent where everyone belongs, thrives, and shapes a shared future?

At a time when democracies around the world are grappling with rising division, dehumanisation, disinformation and the growing influence of far-right movements, the 2026 Symposium was a deliberate act of connection, of collective imagination, and inspired storytelling.

This year’s theme, “Think Systemically, Act Locally,” was a challenge to hold both the big picture and the local context simultaneously. It was a call to understand, and challenge, the systems shaping our lives, while remaining grounded in relationships, neighbourhoods, communities and everyday acts of belonging.

Across panels, workshops, keynote presentations, moments of storytelling, and perhaps most importantly, conversations over coffee, participants explored what it means to create change that is both structural and deeply human-centred.

We heard that systems are not “broken”; many are functioning exactly as designed. We explored how it is the stories underneath systems, the myths about who belongs, who holds power, who gets seen and who gets left behind, that shape policy, culture and connection.

Throughout the Symposium, people returned again and again to the power of narrative, and the opportunity to tell a different national story of inclusion, belonging and community. We centred lived experience at every turn, and invited ourselves to imagine what might be possible when we invest in our stories and in each other.

The Symposium opened with a powerful keynote from Dana Shen, who invited participants to slow down and reconsider the assumptions underpinning the systems we live within. Drawing on First Nations perspectives, she spoke about balance, relationality and the responsibility we hold to each other, to community and to Country.

Mark Yettica-Paulson’s National Perspectives keynote added another important layer; urging attendees to think beyond short-term cycles and fragmented responses. The discussion highlighted the importance of long-term movement building, relational leadership and resisting the temptation to retreat into silos at a time when communities are being deliberately pushed apart. Participants were reminded that systems change requires both courage and coordination: people willing to hold a bigger vision while staying connected to the realities communities are navigating every day.

Global Perspectives Keynote Anat Shenker-Osorio offered a powerful framework for this moment. In the context where the politics of fear and division dominate headlines, she challenged us to instead share a compelling story that people actually want to be part of. If we want people to join us, we have to throw a better party.

That idea echoed throughout the Symposium.

Because this gathering was, in many ways, exactly that: a better party.

A place where lived experience was centred, not sidelined. Where people spoke honestly about racism, exclusion, displacement and injustice, and also about joy, dignity, care, humour, creativity and hope.

We learned more about Professor Kathomi Gatwiri’s Racial Dignity Framework and explored the importance of micro-practices of dignity; the everyday acts that communicate to people that they matter. We heard that relationships matter more than transactions. We were reminded that inclusion is not about helping people fit into narrow systems, but about reshaping the systems themselves.

We spoke about storytelling as agency, sport as belonging, community-led leadership and the danger of tokenism. We leaned in to the concept of becoming good ancestors; of planting trees whose shade we may never sit under.

Again and again, people returned to the same truth:
Belonging is built locally. It is relational. It doesn’t happen by accident. Instead, it is a practice. It takes work.
And yet, local action alone is not enough unless we understand the systems shaping people’s lives.

That is the tension, and opportunity, embedded within this year’s theme; Think Systemically. Act Locally.

If the Symposium activated the choir, to quote Anat Shenker-Osorio, the next challenge is helping the choir sing louder, more collectively and in more places.

Over the weeks and months to come, that looks like:

Continuing to create and champion local welcoming movements,
supporting people who are already doing the work every day,
sharing more inclusive and compelling stories,
creating spaces for participation and leadership,
and refusing the politics of fear, scarcity and division.

It means recognising that people are not against belonging and inclusion because they are inherently hostile; often they simply do not believe a different future is possible yet. We can show them it’s possible and invite them into the journey.

Our task ahead is not only to critique what is broken. It’s also to make belonging visible; to prove that a better world is not only possible, but a whole lot more fun than the politics of fear and division.

In the months ahead, communities across Australia will continue building momentum toward Welcoming Week this September; a national moment to celebrate inclusion, connection and the people creating communities every day where everyone belongs, thrives and shapes our shared future.

The Welcoming Australia Symposium activated the choir – will you help us throw the better party in September?

It will have to be us.

Let’s go