Think Social Cohesion
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About

How the Summit came about

It began as a conversation between SydWest and Just Gold about a community forum. With the convenors, it became the Summit held in Parramatta on 28 July 2026.

The peopleThe Think method
Kyriakos Gold, Elfa Moraitakis, Maria Dimopoulos AM and Violet Roumeliotis AM at the Summit
How it began

From a community forum to a national summit

Think Social Cohesion began as Elfa Moraitakis’s idea. In early 2026 SydWest was considering a community forum. Elfa saw that the question it would ask, what is holding this country together and what is pulling it apart, was bigger than one organisation and one region, and that an answer with any weight had to come from the whole sector. SydWest and Just Gold began conceptualising a summit together, and with Settlement Services International and the Settlement Council of Australia at the table as convenors, it evolved into what it became: a national summit, convened from Western Sydney, with SBS as media partner.

The three convenors are different organisations, and that is the point. On 28 July 2026, one hundred and sixty invited leaders sat at round tables at Business Western Sydney in Parramatta. Ed Husic MP gave the opening keynote and Louise Perry the afternoon keynote. Five panels carried the day, and every person in the room was part of every one of them. The Summit closed with a record of what one hundred and sixty people said, and the Roadmap on this site is drawn from that record.

The convenors

What each one brought

SydWestConvenorThe place and the people

Western Sydney, the communities it works with every day, and the standing to put a national conversation in Parramatta rather than Canberra.

Settlement Services InternationalConvenorScale and evidence

National delivery scale and the evidence on what migrants contribute to this country and what it loses when their skills go unused.

Settlement Council of AustraliaConvenorThe sector’s peak voice

The settlement sector’s peak voice and its reach into every state and into government.

Just Gold

Summit ArchitectSydWest and Just Gold began conceptualising the Summit together. Just Gold designed it on the Think blueprint and brought Thinkr, its latest tool, to the room.

The people

Who convened it

The convenors

  • Elfa MoraitakisChief Executive Officer, SydWest
  • Violet Roumeliotis AMChief Executive Officer, Settlement Services International
  • Maria Dimopoulos AMChief Executive Officer, Settlement Council of Australia
  • Kyriakos GoldSummit Architect. Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Just Gold

The Summit team

  • Dane MooresChief of Advocacy and Public Affairs, Settlement Services International
  • Georgia PrattisGeneral Manager, Settlement Council of Australia
The Think method

A blueprint for democratic dialogue

Date28 July 2026
PlaceBusiness Western Sydney, Parramatta
In the roomOne hundred and sixty invited leaders
ProgramTwo keynotes and five panels
  1. 2021Just Gold builds ThinkAn equaliser: a simple, democratic way to discuss topics and the intersections between them, where no voice counts for more than another. It started as Think Talks and Think Panels.
  2. Tested at smaller eventsThink Pride, Think Culture, Think VoiceThink Voice at the critical time of the referendum.
  3. With RMITThink 3000Think evolved into a full conference model.
  4. On the roadThink Regional Futures and elsewhere
  5. 2026Think Social CohesionAll of that knowledge came to SydWest, and this is where Just Gold brought its latest tool, Thinkr.

Think is Just Gold’s blueprint for democratic dialogue. Just Gold built it in 2021 as an equaliser: a simple, democratic way to discuss topics and the intersections between them, where no voice counts for more than another. It started as Think Talks and Think Panels, and those evolved into what Think is now.

In a Think room the program is designed around personas, the roles an argument needs in order to be tested properly, before a single speaker is invited. Every contribution carries the same weight whatever the title of the person making it.

Think is agile. It works with the room, the topic and the moment in time, and the format changes to suit all three. There is normally an open floor. At Think Social Cohesion there was not, because of the size of the room, the difficulty of the topic, the moment in which the country was having this conversation, and because the room was multilingual. Instead everyone contributed from their phone, in their own words and in their own language, and Thinkr read what the room was saying and put it back to the facilitators mid panel, when it could still change the conversation. Disagreement was kept in the record rather than smoothed out of it.

What happens next

The Roadmap is open for consultation

Just Gold’s impact program supports the whole Think Social Cohesion program, including this website.