United for a Civil Society
ASU Disability Services Conference 2023

24 August 2023

Today, more than 100 ASU members working in community and disability services came together to discuss seven years since we began our Civil Society campaign.

Secretary Angus McFarland spoke about the progress we've made since the campaign's inception. We have come along way since then, but there is more work to do. Angus spoke to the delegates about our fight to end unfair wage theft, to create genuine career pathways and improve training in the sector, and repeated our calls for portable entitlements for all community and disability workers.

NSW IR Minister Sophie Cotsis committed to legislate portable Long Service Leave for all community and disability sector in NSW by early 2024. But before it can be legislated, there will a review panel and a consultation period starting now. We must have our say on what the process looks like – book a workplace visit here  to make sure we see this huge ASU win through!

NSW Community Services Minister Kate Washington spoke about the importance of longer term funding for the community sector. Minister Washington spoke of some harsh statistics in Out of Home Care specifically, and then vowed to end for-profit providers in child protection and domestic violence services. The NSW Labor Government will be setting up a taskforce to deliver their election promises on improving the community sector funding model. Union members will have a seat at the table to discuss how we properly fund your work – contact your local Organiser here to be part of the discussion!

The new semester of the ASU College was launched with some very exciting additional training sessions and the return of some of the more popular sessions – check out the new college sessions here.

We launched the new ASU member portal!! - You can now update your details or contact us via this portal. Click here to log in.

Are you a delegate and would like to do some training? Sign up for delegate training here.