The Quiet Majority, the Loud Minority: What We Get Wrong in Community Engagement

Are we hearing from the community,  or just the people most motivated to speak? In this episode of emPOWER, Wendy Agar is joined by Dr Kieren Moffat (CEO and Co-founder of Voconiq) to unpack a question many of us grapple with in regional Australia: Who is actually shaping the conversation? Because while meetings, submissions and media can make it feel like communities are deeply divided, the data tells a different story.  Research from Powerlink Queensland shows most people don’t participate in engagement at all, while a small group shows up again and again. So what does that mean for how we interpret “community sentiment”? And what if the way we design engagement is part of the problem? This conversation challenges a core assumption:  Engagement doesn’t just capture community views, it can shape what we hear. In this episode, we cover: Why the “loud minority” can dominate — and what that means for decision-making How common engagement approaches can unintentionally skew what we hear The impact of engagement fatigue when multiple projects hit a region at once What better engagement design looks like in practice  If you work in renewable energy, transmission, stakeholder engagement, land access or project development in regional Australia, this episode offers a clear, practical lens on how to design engagement that reflects the full community — not just the voices we hear most often. This episode is part of the Working in the Middle: Engagement on the Ground During the Energy Transition series, supported by Powerlink Queensland. Produced at ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane