Chinese Year of the Fire Horse PSA lunch

Another year has started, and the PSA hopes all members had a restful and enjoyable break with their families over the festive season.

Thank you to the members who attended the PSA’s Chinese New Year lunch. The lunch went well, and many good conversations were had about the strength of the union and the power of collective approaches to resolving workplace issues and improving life at work.

Already the year is flying past, and the PSA has met with Multicultural NSW management for our first Joint Consultative Committee meetings for 2026.

Multicultural NSW Joint Consultative Committee and Language Services sub-committee overview

General Multicultural NSW update

Multicultural NSW issued a statement relating to the current unrest and community protests.

Members would be aware that the CEO has been seconded onto a special committee to help the government manage the difficult situation including the Bondi response. Community meetings and other forms of assistance to the broader community has been provided by MNSW.

People Mater Employee Survey

Multicultural NSW advised that there was a 100 per cent staff participation rate in the survey. This represents a 4 per cent increase in engagement. From the survey results, Multicultural NSW will apply a tailored approach for each division with staffing briefings and other forms of engagement with staff.

WHS

Health and Safety Representatives expressions of interest resulted in five staff nominations. Three of those nominations are from Language Services.

A WHS audit will be conducted during 2026. One issue of importance relates to reliability of the lifts. As with all WHS issues, the PSA encourages members to lodge incident reports. Lodging incident reports provides vital data which is essential in advancing workplace health and safety.

PDPs

HR staff will be providing training on staff identifying their PDP development goals. Multicultural NSW advised that this will be in-train over the next few months as the PDP year commences in August.

Recruitment

There has been some recruitment in Multicultural NSW for positions requiring backfilling due to incumbents taking leave.

Language Services sub committee

We met with Multicultural NSW management to discuss the following issues raised by Interpreter and Translator members.

Guidelines

Multicultural NSW issued guidelines which members raised concerns about. The PSA sought for Multicultural NSW to agree to a review of the document.

Local workplace representatives will be involved in the review.

Managing multiple language assignments

Multiple assignments in one day is an issue that has been raised by PSA members. The union has placed the issue on the JCC agenda.

Multicultural NSW advises that Senior Practitioners are being consulted so that Multicultural NSW can understand what a reasonable volume for a day.

Payment as Expert Witness on subpoena

The PSA has raised this issue with Multicultural NSW. The issue is complex as Multicultural NSW does not make the payment which involves other NSW Government agencies.

The PSA has written to Multicultural NSW seeking its support in advancing this issue.

Long Service Leave or Extended Leave entitlements

The PSA has raised Multicultural NSW’s liability for either long service leave or extended leave payments to long serving casual interpreters and translators.

The PSA has written to Multicultural NSW seeking its position on long service leave or extended leave entitlements.

Interpreting for different parties while at court

Multicultural NSW is reviewing previous advice and communications on this issue. The PSA has requested to be consulted.

Call back to court

Members have raised that there is an inconsistent approach to call back to court once they have been signed off. The PSA has sought Multicultural NSW to provide an understanding of expectations. This issue is complex in that while some languages may be in demand, others may not be required once the matter at court has been dealt with. The PSA and Multicultural NSW will continue to discuss this issue.

Manual allocation of court matters

The PSA has raised issues at the JCC around perceived unfair or inequitable allocation of cases. Multicultural NSW have advised that they have conducted a review of the process and did not find any issue with the allocation of court matters.

If members believe this is still an issue, and are prepared to have their individual circumstances reviewed, please come forward to your local workplace reps and Organiser.

The PSA would need some form of evidence that matters have not be fairly distributed to you. This issue can’t be dealt with anonymously so we would need to provide information on your behalf to MNSW.

Contacts

Alex Sala Organiser

Anthony Wright Industrial Officer|