On Tuesday we attended the Tasmanian Industrial Commission for a hearing to register the changes to your Award that we won during negotiations.

It’s been a long road to get here, and your campaign for better wages and entitlements has all but wrapped up with the registration of the Award – well done on all your effort.

There are a number of positive changes for workers across the public sector, and whilst the government didn’t quite meet their own 31 March deadline, we’ve made sure that all of the improved provisions and new entitlements apply from that date. Here are the changes that are now in place from March 31:

• Parental leave increased to 18 weeks and 4 weeks respectively for primary and non-primary caregivers

• Recreation leave will now accrue as you work rather than on anniversary date

• Leave for workers dealing with a disability

• Leave for foster and kinship carers

• 20 days’ family violence leave

• Surrogacy leave

• Gender affirmation leave

• Recognition of aboriginal kinship relationships for the purposes of leave

• Aboriginal cultural leave

We’ve still got another raft of changes you endorsed in negotiations to work through which aren’t subject to a deadline. So, we’ll be working with the State Service Management Office to get those further changes made as soon as we can and making sure we keep them on track.

We’ll be out and about visiting, so if you’ve got any questions make sure you come and see us when we’re at your work, or contact us on 1300 880 032 or at assist@hacsu.org.au