The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment policy has been a key project for the NSW Public Service Commission since 2014, but it is only recently they’ve adopted a more personal approach.
Public service commissioner, Kathrina Lo and her workforce-inclusion and experience team travelled to Wiradjuri country in March for a listen-and-learn session to hear directly from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees in the public sector.
The listen-and-learn event was hosted at Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo. Partnering with local Aboriginal support networks across the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure and the Department of Regional NSW, it was attended by around 65 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public sector employees.
Participants shared stories about the importance of safety and the negative impacts when workplaces aren’t culturally capable.
The commissioner said creating space for honest conversations and feedback is vital.
“I really value hearing about the good — and not-so-good– experiences of our Aboriginal colleagues. As leaders, if we don’t know what is going on, we can’t create change,” Lo said.
Sharing and learning from lived experience is a key element to the design of the NSW Public Service Commission’s cultural capability programs. The Everyone’s Business: Learning about Stolen Generations program provides sector employees with first-hand stories from Stolen Generations survivors to create a stronger understanding of how past impacts of government policies can still impact local communities today.
More than 34,000 sector employees have completed this cultural capability training. But director of workforce inclusion and experience Emilie Priday said this wasn’t enough.
Getting into country and discussing things personally with Indigenous workers in their own comfort zone enables the creation of deeper levels of understanding and deeper relationships of trust. Some of the insights developed here are about understanding the workforce experience directly, but others are about creating a broader context for understanding Indigenous culture.
In Dubbo, local Wiradjuri elder Uncle Peter Peckham took the team to visit two Aboriginal significant sites: the local grinding groves that formed as a result of sharpening tools, and a scar tree used for making canoes.
The strategy is backed by evidence from the Productivity Commission, which has called for more direct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander input into Closing the Gap. Programs like these are likely to become more vital in the public service, as a direct response to the commission’s recommendations, and the failure to create a political consultation structure in the Voice to Parliament.
“It was a real privilege to hear Uncle Peter’s stories and learn about his country. For me, this helped contextualise what we had heard from our Aboriginal colleagues and reminded me of the ongoing strength in culture and connection to country,” Priday said.
“Public servants can spend a lot of time studying policy documents and reading research, but the greatest insights come from genuine, face-to-face contact with the people that we serve.”
This more personal approach to consulting with people on the receiving end of policy changes appears to be working. The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander senior leaders has tripled in the past 10 years, with over 170 Aboriginal senior leaders across the sector in 2023. Nearly 60% of this growth has occurred in the past 3 years.
The team from the NSW Public Service Commission left with practical suggestions for improvements with a focus on creating agency-wide accountability, and making Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural capability everyone’s business. Insights will progress their work to create inclusive, culturally safe workplaces.
The next listen-and-learn session is scheduled for June, in Coffs Harbour.
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