Seeing the person: human leadership in a fractured and tech-driven world

As we come together to talk about technology for social justice, I want to start with a person.

Her name is Janine. Janine is in her late 60s. About 14 years ago, she lost her husband to cancer.

Before he died, Janine was caring for him and supporting her mother, who was living with dementia.

To get through, she used family savings. She picked up casual work where she could. And for the first time, she needed to turn to Centrelink for support. It was a period of sustained pressure – emotionally, financially and physically. And then, one day, out of nowhere, Janine received a letter. No explanation. No calculation. A demand for thousands she owed.

Janine spent hours on the phone trying to speak to someone. Janine was one of 443,000 people caught up in the Robodebt between 2016-2019. An automated system, designed for efficiency and cost savings. The Royal Commission later described the scheme as “crude and cruel”. Unlawful. Shifting the burden onto individuals to prove they did not owe a debt, rather than requiring government to prove that they did. The government introduced Robodebt to save taxpayers $1 billion. In the end, it cost $1.8 billion to repay people.

This wasn’t just policy failure. Janine was simply and sadly - not seen as a person but a data point. This is what happens when technology is designed without humanity. When a person's dignity is sacrificed to meet a budgetary target.

Right now, we are seeing serious concerns emerge in aged care. New algorithm-based assessment tools designed to standardise, streamline, move faster.

The reality? Older people are being under-assessed and even being assigned to lower levels of support than they had before. In many cases, there’s no meaningful way for a human to override the decision.

These examples point to something broader. The way we design systems reflects who we are as a society; what we value and who we prioritise. When we view individuals only through the lens of productivity – as an economic gain or a financial loss – the consequences are real. And they are always felt first by the most vulnerable.

Technology without humanity causes harm. Any system that fails to place humanity at its core will inevitably fail the people it serves. This responsibility sits with all of us.

We need to recognise each other as people again. In our systems. In our institutions. And in our day-to-day interactions. Only then can we strengthen our communities again and rebuild a sense of social cohesion.

Social cohesion has become kind of a modern buzzword. It appears in news headlines, in political speeches. And yet, despite how often it is used, there is little shared understanding of what it actually means. The OECD defines a cohesive society as one that “works toward the wellbeing of all its members, fights exclusion, and resists marginalisation”.

Social cohesion isn’t just about people getting along – it’s about whether our systems are designed so everyone can participate and thrive.

Social cohesion is structural. When cohesion is strong, the benefits are significant. Stronger economic growth. Greater resilience in times of crisis. Better health outcomes. And lower levels of division that can escalate into hate crimes.

But today, our social fabric is under strain. We’re seeing rising racism, antisemitism and islamophobia–and ongoing harm toward First Nations peoples and other communities. Social cohesion is eroding – and it’s happening faster than we’ve seen in the past.

As a queer woman of colour, and someone who came to Australia as part of the Vietnamese refugee “boat people”, the rise in hate and violence feels deeply personal and frightening.

The day after the national “March for Australia” anti-immigration rallies, my sister Duyen, messaged to ask whether I felt safe walking through the streets. It brought us back to the mid-90s when Pauline Hanson and One Nation came onto the political scene.

The 2026 landscape: Rising inequity

If we look for the causes of the rapid escalation of anger, hate and violence, some experts point to what they describe as a “widespread social depression” – a collective sense of despair and polarisation shaped by global instability, the collapse of nuanced dialogue and the rise of social inequality.

Wherever we look, we can see the gap between the wealthy few and everyone else is rapidly increasing. Poverty is a trap and it forces people into impossible decisions between food, medicine and rent.

At Sacred Heart Mission, we see families coming for meals because they can’t afford food and electricity in the same week. Over the last six months, we’ve had 1,400 more people each month access our meals program.

Across Australia, the proportion of rental properties affordable for people on JobSeeker in major cities is effectively zero. Low-income and even many middle-income earners are being priced out of the housing market.

Tonight around 34,800 people will be sleeping rough across Australia – and that is only those we know about.

We are also seeing the care sector change dramatically. Childcare, disability and aged care are increasingly treated as industries for return, not care. In short, wherever we look, we are seeing a steady rise in inequality. That rise is fuelling a scarcity mindset – the belief there isn’t enough housing, jobs or security for everyone.

It’s a familiar story. In the 1980s recession, Asian Australians – including my family – were told we were taking jobs and should go back to where we belonged.

More than 40 years on, in another period of uncertainty, we’re hearing it again. This time, the narrative is accelerated by technology. It is louder and more harmful – amplified by the technologies that shape our daily lives.

Technology as an accelerator

Across government, business, health and social services, AI is being adopted at speed – in the name of efficiency. With the promise of cost savings as we’ve already seen. Often presented as neutral and objective. But AI is not neutral. It reflects existing bias, and at scale, it accelerates inequality.

Technology isn’t created with marginalised communities and their needs in mind. As a result, people from vulnerable communities are often excluded from technologies that are now considered mainstream. According to the Australian Digital Inclusion Index, around one in five Australians (20.6%) are digitally excluded. At the same time, governments are moving services online, with a ‘digital by default’ approach.

We are all here today because we know things must change. We are here because we believe in a vision of a socially just world – one where everyone belongs, and where everyone has the opportunity to participate. Tech justice is a critical part of achieving that vision. Tech justice means putting people – not efficiency – at the centre.

Beyond privacy alone, people need to know and have a real say in how their data is collected, used and sold.

Data should be a tool for self-determination, not a mechanism for control or profit. This also includes Indigenous Data Sovereignty – the right of Indigenous peoples to govern their data.

We need stronger accountability and regulation.

We need to stop seeing people as units of consumption or entries in a dataset, and start seeing them as citizens with rights, dignity and complexity. Technology must reflect that.

The pressure in the for-purpose sector to use AI to “do more with less” is real. But we also need to be honest about the risks that come with adopting new technologies quickly, and we need to actively mitigate them.

For organisations like Sacred Heart Mission, ACOSS and its members, tech justice means ensuring our internal systems do not exclude, disadvantage or harm service participants – whether intentionally or unintentionally.

That is why our starting point with AI is people, not tools.

Any use of AI within our organisations should be guided by two non-negotiables:

• Governance before scale
• Human oversight upstream

Used in this way, technology can help ensure people are treated as people in digital systems.

We want AI that does not extract value from people, but gives something back: time, attention and space for our staff to focus on what cannot be automated: the relational work, the care and the human presence should never be automated.

These principles do not sit in isolation. They are being shaped in a sector that is operating under increasing pressure to adopt digital technologies, while also managing significant funding constraints.

This is why the NFP Digital Futures initiative that David [David Spriggs of Infoxchange] introduced becomes so important.

It is designed as an enabler of this transition; supporting organisations, including Sacred Heart Mission, ACOSS and its members, to take a more human-centred approach to digital transformation, to build capability in ways that strengthen resilience, responsiveness and innovation.

I’m pleased that Sacred Heart Mission and ACOSS have been part of the co-design process for Digital Futures, and it’s something we’re genuinely excited about.

A call for human leadership – and technology

As I come to the end of my speech, I want to remind us of what makes us powerful in the for-purpose sector. A sector I’ve devoted 25 years to – a sector I love and deeply respect.

Our superpower is our ability to see and understand people as people. In all their dimensions. Fully and completely. And to act from that understanding – with care, attention and accountability.

Our responsibility is to use that superpower intentionally with technology. Not simply to adopt it, but to shape it, and to ensure it serves human need, upholds human dignity and human rights.

Because systems are not built in isolation - this responsibility extends across all sectors and industries - profit, tech companies and government.

We know what’s possible when people are the centre of technology solutions.

Headspace youth mental health service is one such example of co-design where young people are not just users but decision makers. My niece Khanh, who at 15, was going through a tough time, told me how the information on the website was so easy to navigate and understand that it gave her the confidence to take that next step to ask for help. Help that changed her life.

With humanity as a guiding principle in everything we do, we have the chance to build a better way forward:

In the rush to scale, let’s not lose the one thing that matters: seeing the person.

Tech essentials for your NFP

Community Directors houses a huge web library of free, practical resources, and here's where to find help related to technology and artificial intelligence. You’ll find guidebooks, templates, policies and more articles covering issues such as data, cybersecurity, technology planning, ethics and using artificial intelligence.