Our priorities
CASWA amplifies and represents the collective interests of the WA ACCO sector, ensuring ACCOs have a strong, unified voice in decisions that affect them. By working together, the sector is better positioned to influence policy, secure sustainable funding, and represent community priorities at both state and national levels.
Our four priorities
CASWA supports a strong, financially viable and operationally sustainable Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation (ACCO) sector across Western Australia.
Priority 1
We will support a strong, financially viable and operationally sustainable ACCO sector across WA.
Priority 2
We will amplify and represent the interests and expertise of the ACCO sector across WA.
Priority 3
We will shape policy and aspire to transform the systems which impact ACCOs and the communities they serve.
Priority 4
We will help define and measure sector and system outcomes, holding ACCOs, governments and community services to account.
Priority 1
The WA ACCO sector is diverse, spanning established and emerging organisations. Strengthening capacity and capability across the sector is essential to delivering culturally secure services and closing the gap in outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.
- We will actively understand the strengths, needs and priorities of our members, the WA ACCO sector and Aboriginal communities.
- We will aspire to deliver and facilitate ACCO sector capability building to strengthen their financial sustainability, governance and impact.
- We will share information, resources and opportunities across the WA ACCO sector to promote empowerment and self-determination.
- We will support the coordination, partnership and collaboration of WA ACCOs.
- We will support the emergence and growth of new and established WA ACCOs.
- There will be more ACCOs working across all service delivery sectors and WA regions.
- ACCOs will deliver better outcomes for their communities and realise greater operational sustainability.
- ACCOs will recognise and respect their diversity and differences, yet be undivided.
Priority 2
Respectful recognition of the cultural knowledge and expertise of ACCOs, and genuine engagement of Aboriginal people in equal partnerships and decision-making processes are essential for systemic growth and change. A unified voice for the ACCO sector will ensure ACCOs have input into decisions that affect them, and that community interests are represented at state and national levels.
- We will create opportunities for the ACCO sector to come together to share and learn.
- We will represent the ACCO sector, and the communities they serve in local, state and national forums.
- We will identify other opportunities for ACCO sector representation, including advisory groups, and support ACCO participation.
- We will actively support the rights of ACCOs to be self-determining in their advocacy to influence state and national policy and investment.
- We will partner with and support peak bodies across Australia to achieve shared interests.
- There will be a high level of trust within and between the ACCO sector and others.
- The sector will be equal partners and have an equal voice in forums that impact Aboriginal lives.
- Other mechanisms for sector influence, including peaks, will be stronger.
Priority 3
As custodians of culture, local knowledge and service delivery expertise in their communities, ACCOs are best placed to inform policies and programs that impact Aboriginal people. Policy and institutional reform, and new approaches to funding ACCOs, requires CASWA and WA ACCOs at the negotiation table with all levels of government, and with our non-government partners.
- We will actively listen to our membership to understand the strengths, interests and priorities of our members and the communities they serve.
- We will participate in decision-making processes at state and national levels to shape policy.
- We will advocate to policy makers and others to fund the sustainable and effective transition of Aboriginal services to the ACCO sector.
- We will develop strategies to improve and increase the commissioning and procurement of ACCOs.
- We will support government to build their capability and readiness to partner and collaborate with ACCOs.
- The ACCO sector will receive sustainable and equitable levels of funding.
- Policies and institutions will reflect Aboriginal experiences and dismantle systemic barriers.
- Institutions will prioritise ACCOs in their procurement and commissioning processes.
Priority 4
Respectful recognition of the cultural knowledge and expertise of ACCOs, and genuine engagement of Aboriginal people in equal partnerships and decision-making processes are essential for systemic growth and change. A unified voice for the ACCO sector will ensure ACCOs have input into decisions that affect them, and that community interests are represented at state and national levels.
- We will advocate for Aboriginal data sovereignty, to ensure ACCOs maintain ownership and control of the data they collect, and that it is used in a culturally safe and respectful way.
- We will actively contribute to the design of reviews and evaluations of ACCOs and the ACCO sector so that Aboriginal people define and measure success in their own terms.
- We will develop an evidence base of past, present and future inquiries, recommendations and investments in Aboriginal programs and outcomes, which we will use to advocate for change in the way that policy is made, and services are procured, commissioned and delivered.
- We will proactively share information with our membership in a way that is accessible for members and their communities.
- Government partners will be accountable to their commitments and will work with us on reforms to improve outcomes.
- ACCOs will have access to a comprehensive evidence base to advocate for change.
- The design of evaluations and agreements will be Aboriginal-led and delivered.
Outcome Portfolio Areas
The policy domains where we advocate, represent and reform.
Child & Family Wellbeing
Aboriginal children grow up strong when families hold authority over decisions about them. Aboriginal families, Elders and communities already carry the knowledge and kinship systems that keep children safe. CASWA builds on that strength.
We back Aboriginal family authority and family-led decision making, and we argue early help and prevention as the primary investment — ACCO-delivered parenting and kinship support, family preservation and reunification, reaching families long before crisis. We seek staged delegation of statutory child protection functions to ACCOs, and every child in care supported home to family, community, culture and Country.
Closing the Gap: Targets 3, 4 and 12
Rights & Justice
Aboriginal people hold rights that exist independently of any government — affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and carried in cultural law. Preventing family violence sits at the centre of this portfolio: Aboriginal women, children and Elders are safest when family safety responses are Aboriginal-led.
Early help is where the system fails hardest and gains most — trauma-aware support long before police contact, community-led alternatives to detention, cultural security across youth justice and fair bail, remand and sentencing. We press for access to more cultural supports in prisons and independent oversight wherever institutions fail Aboriginal people.
Closing the Gap: Targets 10, 11 and 13
Education, Skills & Employment
Aboriginal students succeed when schools meet their needs: Aboriginal staff, two-way learning, and secondary schooling close to home through to Year 12. Aboriginal languages are taught and resourced from early learning on, with language centres funded and Elders paid as teachers.
Vocational education and training carries that forward — the Aboriginal Registered Training Organisation sector, a growing Aboriginal VET workforce, cultural capability across TAFE, and traineeships and cadetships that lead to secure work. Workforce development across the ACCO sector matters equally: profiling the workforce we have, planning for the workforce we need, and building careers within Aboriginal organisations.
Closing the Gap: Targets 5, 6, 7, 8 and 16
Housing & Community Infrastructure
Housing makes everything else possible: a strong start in the early years, keeping family safe and ageing at home on Country.
Aboriginal households need safe, appropriate, climate-ready housing across WA, with the sharpest shortfall in remote communities. So does the infrastructure around them — reliable power, clean water, sewerage, roads and broadband connectivity other Western Australians take for granted. Without housing for staff, ACCOs cannot recruit or hold the workforce communities depend on.
ACCOs already build, manage and maintain housing, and know what communities need. We seek long-term, needs-based capital and operational funding, essential services at the standard other Western Australians expect pathways to Aboriginal home ownership, and ACCOs recognised as legitimate housing providers and infrastructure holders.
Closing the Gap: Targets 9A, 9B and 17
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