Revisiting socio-political risk in a new era
In 2017, I presented to the Risk Management Institute of Australasia (WA) on a then-underappreciated threat: the rise of socio-political risk in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which I called the ‘sleeping saboteur’.
I argued that while companies worked to remove unpredictability and human error from operations, they were simultaneously stripping out the elements that connected them emotionally and economically to society.
Automation, decentralisation and digitalisation weren’t just reshaping work. They were quietly redrawing the social contract between organisations and the communities around them.
Eight years later, it’s clear the saboteur didn’t stay asleep.
What’s changed, and what hasn’t
Back in 2017, I suggested that while technical risk was flattening, socio-political risk was accelerating. That held for a while, but in 2025 we’re seeing a spike in both. Cyberattacks, cascading system failures, and climate-triggered disruptions have re-politicised technical risk. At the same time, the social terrain has grown more volatile and fragmented. Narrative fragility is now a key operational risk in its own right.
Society still judges risk holistically, and that judgment still drives political response. That’s why understanding socio-political risk is not just a public affairs issue. It’s a meta-risk. It shapes how every other risk is perceived, accepted, or contested.
The quiet drift of social capital
In mining, we’ve seen the gradual reduction in site-based workforces as automation has matured. That transition has reduced direct employment in regional areas and diluted the social and economic ripple effects that once underpinned the industry’s legitimacy. The voices that once rallied around the industry – workers, families, local businesses – are quieter now. Some are gone.
The result? Mining companies are increasingly tolerated, not loved. They lack the instinctive constituency that once defended them in times of controversy or reform. The ‘hi-vis army’ that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with executives in opposition to resource rent taxes no longer exists in the same form. In a crisis, who speaks up now? The ICT division?
This isn’t unique to mining. In 2022, AGL attempted to demerge its fossil assets. The backlash, driven by activist investors and a groundswell of community opposition, forced a complete backdown. That resistance didn’t come from unions or regions, but from a new kind of digitally literate, values-driven constituency.
What a social constituency looks like now
Your constituency in 2025 isn’t defined by geographic presence or traditional loyalty. It’s shaped by alignment with shared values – transparency, fairness, climate responsibility, and ethical use of technology.
These constituencies are fragmented, fast-moving, and hyper-networked. When trust is breached, they mobilise quickly through shareholder action, litigation, media pressure or social platforms. The 2023 Optus outage was a masterclass in this dynamic: silence from leadership created a vacuum that was quickly filled by outrage, ridicule and calls for regulatory reform.
Constituencies today don’t wait for the next annual report. They respond in real time, and they expect the organisations they deal with to be accountable in real time too.
The return of spiky technical risk
The 2017 thesis that automation would reduce human variability and flatten technical risk still holds in some respects. But we now know that removing humans doesn’t remove unpredictability – it just transfers it.
The 2023 cyberattack on Latitude Financial affected millions of customers and ignited political and regulatory scrutiny. The technical breach was serious, but it was the failure of communication, transparency and empathy that caused reputational damage to escalate.
In the energy sector, climate-linked failures such as South Australia’s grid instability have undermined public trust in the reliability of systems once thought smart and safe. These failures are viewed not just as operational issues, but as breaches of the implied social contract.
When systems fail now, they fail visibly. Visibility, in a hyperconnected world, is everything.
Sectoral echoes: It’s not just mining
The same themes now play out across energy, infrastructure, and AI-led service sectors.
Renewables, once framed as morally unassailable, are now embroiled in complex land-use disputes and social licence battles. Transmission line opposition in regional NSW and Victoria has made clear that the ‘just transition’ must also be a just conversation.
Infrastructure projects are increasingly scrutinised for resilience and equity. Outages, data centre failures, and transport breakdowns are politicised instantly. Technical fault becomes a social issue within hours.
In AI-led sectors, algorithmic opacity and bias have fuelled community backlash. These businesses are discovering that disintermediating human interactions doesn’t remove the need for trust. Rather, it makes the consequences of losing it more immediate.
In each of these cases, the real risk is not jobs per se. It’s disconnection. It’s the erosion of shared understanding between institutions and the people they serve.
So, what now?
Executives, risk leads and policy professionals must stop treating socio-political risk as peripheral. It is the context in which all other risks are judged. It is the difference between being left alone, and being actively challenged.
Ask yourself:
• Would anyone stand up for us if we were attacked?
• Are we telling a story that people still believe?
• Do our actions align with the values of the communities and networks we touch?
These are not questions for the comms team. They belong in the boardroom, and they demand an integrated, adaptive response.
Where Risk Communication Australia comes in
At Risk Communication Australia, we help organisations make sense of complex socio-political environments. We map stakeholder dynamics, surface hidden tensions, and craft engagement strategies that are ethically sound, politically literate, and socially grounded.
If your organisation is navigating transitions in automation, decarbonisation, AI adoption or regulatory pressure, we can help you move beyond compliance to clarity, and from tolerance to trust
To explore how we can work together, get in touch. Let’s talk about where your risk really lives and how to lead through it.
