More than 1 in 10 Australians live with asthma—that's 2.8 million people. In the Illawarra alone, over 250 people are hospitalized each year, impacting not just those with the condition but their families and communities.

In this informative episode of Community Matters, Nicky talks with Alexander Brown, Asthma Program Coordinator with Healthy Cities Australia, about a partnership that's working to change these numbers. Breathe Better Illawarra brings together Healthy Cities Australia and Asthma Australia to build an "Asthma Smart Community" - moving beyond reactive management to prevention..

Since July 2024, the program has been working with schools, families, and the broader community, with a particular focus on children. In partnership with the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District's Community Asthma Education Service, they're running self-management workshops that help people move beyond reactive treatment to understand and prevent asthma flare-ups before they happen.

Alexander shares practical information about free resources including Asthma Australia's free first aid course and 1800 helpline, and dives into a critical but often overlooked issue: indoor air quality. With over 12% of Australia's asthma burden linked to indoor gas appliances, transitioning to electric alternatives or improving ventilation with rangehoods will significantly reduce flare-ups for those in homes still using gas for heating and cooking.

The conversation also explores housing standards, particularly for renters. Alexander discusses Victoria's new requirements for landlords to electrify appliances at end-of-life replacement, and his advocacy through the NSW parliamentary inquiry into indoor air quality and updates to Wollongong City Council's Development Control Plan to bring these standards to the Illawarra and beyond.

Discover how your community can breathe easier on this educational episode of Community Matters.

Links and Resources:

· Healthy Cities Australia Breathe Better Website – get in touch with Alexander and find out about asthma courses and events - Breathe Better Illawarra | Healthy Cities Australia

· Asthma Australia First Aid course (a great course for anyone who works with children) - Asthma First Aid Instructions by Asthma Australia

· 1800 Asthma – book a call with an asthma educator for advice - Book Asthma Support with 1800 Asthma Call Service

· Find out more and contribute to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into indoor air quality - Clean indoor air

Acknowledgement of Country

Community Industry Group' podcast is recorded on beautiful Dharawal Country, and we acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, and their Elders.

We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture, the world’s oldest living culture, and the contribution they make to the life of this region and our country.

We acknowledge that we live and work on Aboriginal land and recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of Aboriginal people.

Music Credit:

"Jarvic 8" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The 2024 Closing the Gap report revealed a stark truth: 47% of the health gap for Aboriginal people, including life expectancy rates, is related to institutional racism, interpersonal racism, and intergenerational trauma. These findings make one thing clear: cultural safety isn't optional.

But what does cultural safety actually mean for community service organisations, and how do we achieve it?

In this episode, Nicky sits down with Becky Garrett, Operations Manager at SAHSSI and recent recipient of the 2025 Innovation Community Service Award for her work on cultural safety. Becky shares the transformative work happening at her organization and the lessons every service provider needs to hear.

Key insights include:

• Cultural safety as lived experience – It's about the subjective experience of Aboriginal staff and clients, not just checkboxes on a form.
• Moving beyond the RAP – Despite having a Reconciliation Action Plan, SAHSSI knew something more was needed. Their cultural audit revealed critical gaps and sparked organization-wide buy-in.
• Walking the talk – SAHSSI created two dedicated Cultural Lead positions on Dharawal and Yuin Countries, properly remunerating staff for cultural work rather than expecting it on top of regular duties.
• The power of listening – As Becky says: "To really understand the impact of colonisation, you have to sit and listen really carefully".

Despite not being an Aboriginal Controlled Organisation, SAHSSI took ownership: "These are our clients. We have to get this right."

This conversation is essential listening for any leader ready to move from good intentions to genuine change.

Links and Resources:

• SAHSSI website: SAHSSI | Home
• Closing the Gap Report: Closing the Gap
• The National Anti Racism Framework: The National Anti-Racism Framework Full Report 2024
• Community Service Awards: Community Services Awards 2025 — Community Industry Group
• Information about Reconciliation Action Plans: Reconciliation Action Plans - Reconciliation Australia

Acknowledgement of Country

Community Industry Group' podcast is recorded on beautiful Dharawal Country, and we acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, and their Elders.

We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture, the world’s oldest living culture, and the contribution they make to the life of this region and our country.

We acknowledge that we live and work on Aboriginal land and recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of Aboriginal people.

Music Credit:

"Jarvic 8" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

In a terrible indictment on disability inclusion in leadership and governance roles, across Australia's 300 largest companies, not a single director openly identifies as living with disability. Zero. And it's been that way for years. In this powerful episode of Community Matters, host Nicky Sloan sits down with Krystal Tritton, CEO of disability provider roundsquared, who describes this as “a horrible statistic, that has gone unchecked for so long”.

As a busy executive who is totally blind Krystal brings a critically important perspective of lived experience to this significant issue of representation. Krystal and Nicky unpack why disability representation is unseen or non-existent at the highest levels of Australian leadership, and just what that is costing us all.

The employment gap tells the story with only 53% of people with disability employed compared to 82% without. This is a chasm that hasn't budged significantly in two decades, despite billions in government funding. The issue isn't ability; it's a society that frames disability through a lens of inability rather than possibility.

“Our disability isn’t our identity. It’s part of us but it’s not who we are” explains Krystal. Having worked in the sector for 23 years, she explains that while the community sector is making inroads to disability representation at leadership levels, this is not happening in the corporate sector. “I would like to see people sitting at the board of Macquarie Bank, Coles, Woolies, Myers” she says as she explains how these companies are missing out on the representation of a huge cross section of their customer base.

The ripple effects are profound. When a member of their advocacy group told Krystal, "Because you're a CEO, I see that I could be too," it clarified the power of representation. But that's exactly what's missing from Australia's ASX 300 boardrooms, leading to retailers designing inaccessible stores or tech companies designing solutions that don't work for everyone.

Krystal's call to action is clear: set standards for employers for disability representation and inclusion with real jobs at real wages, embed a standard of experiential disability education as part of every higher education course engaging and paying people with disability to deliver, ask people with disability what they need and actually listen, and partner and recognise organisations doing it right.

This conversation will challenge everything you thought you knew about disability and leadership. Australia’s boardrooms are missing out and it’s time they caught up.

Links and Resources:

· 2025 AICD Board Diversity Index

· roundsquared website

Acknowledgement of Country

Community Industry Group' podcast is recorded on beautiful Dharawal Country, and we acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, and their Elders.

We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture, the world’s oldest living culture, and the contribution they make to the life of this region and our country.

We acknowledge that we live and work on Aboriginal land and recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of Aboriginal people.

Music Credit:

"Jarvic 8" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/