The PSA’s Annual Conference brings together delegates from across all of the NSW public sector’s departments, agencies, boards, offices, groups, sections, commissions, platforms, authorities, services, tribunals, trusts, reforms, regulators, affairs, counsels, and guardians.
It is a very varied association, and is always an eye-opening, and highly informative day. It illustrates the diverse ways in which our members work to keep the state running.
“The NSW public service defies clichés and stereotypes,” said Nicole Jess, President of the PSA. “Professionally, we embrace the variety of specialised ways we have developed to deliver services to the people of NSW. And our members, the people who deliver the services, are equally diverse. And we need to celebrate this.”
Women’s Conference was the first conference to be set up to focus on the specific issues that face a group of members that differed from those that face the whole membership but are nonetheless equally significant. In March 1981 the PSA commenced holding annual Women’s Conferences, and at that time it was only one of two unions in Australia to do so. The first conference, held at the NSW Institute of Technology near Railway Square, attracted 200 women members. Occupational health and safety for women and permanency for large numbers of temporary female employees were the major issues, and workshops were also held on child-care, technological change, part-time work, and women from non-English speaking backgrounds. PSA Women’s Industrial Officer Simone Scalmer said “The Women’s Council has been a major agitation point behind some big wins over the more than four decades it has been held, including pay equality, maternity leave, and more recently domestic violence leave, and lactation breaks.”
Historically, unions in Australia have been rightly criticised for not doing enough to support Indigenous workers. The PSA, because our membership has long-included Aboriginal people, was a union that has had a stronger recognition of Indigenous rights within the workforce for many decades. Our Aboriginal Council was one of the first to be established in the country. Sean Bremer, then Chair of the Aboriginal Council said in 2021, “The PSA’s Aboriginal Conference that began in 2018, had to expand from a half-day event to a full day conference to cover the enormous amount of issues faced by the union’s First Nations members by 2021.”
The Public Service Association of NSW and Community and Public Sector Union (SPSF Group) NSW Branch acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands where we work and the places in which we live. We pay respect to Ancestors and Elders, past, present and future. We recognise the unique cultural and spiritual relationship and celebrate the contributions of first nations peoples to Australia.
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