Businesses, government and community organisations are encouraged to apply for the 2009-10 National Work-Life Balance Awards (the Awards) ahead of the closing date on COB Friday, 18 September 2009.

The Awards will acknowledge leaders in various industry sectors who excel in offering work, life and family initiatives. There will be 13 award category winners and one overall national winner.

Award winners will be able to use a winner’s symbol for a three-year period, helping them to attract employees. Winners will be announced at a ceremony scheduled for February 2010.

To apply or to find out more about the Awards go to http://www.deewr.gov.au/worklife or call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94. If you would like further information about other workplace relations initiatives go to www.deewr.gov.au/WorkplaceRelations

In response to a common question being asked at the moment,  the ATO has advised as follows:

The tax office definition of a small business is: an individual, partnership, trust or company with aggregated turnover less than $2 million. An aggregated turnover is your annual turnover of any businesses you are connected or affiliated with.

If your previous year’s aggregated turnover (gross income not net profit) was $2 million or less, you are a small business for the current year. If one of your last two year’s aggregated turnover was less than $2 million, you can estimate that your current year will be $2 million or less.

These allow you, as a small business, to access the various PAYG Instalments, GST, CGT, FBT and income tax concessions.

The Federal Government has released its issues paper on the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace legislation and called for public comment.

Submissions close on 16 October 2009 and instructions on how to make submissions are included in the paper.

Women in the workforce have undeniably come a long way since the days of blatant discrimination and sexism in the 70s.

But in her media release announcing the review, Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek, highlighted the fact that the pay gap between male and female full-time earnings is now 17.2 per cent and that over the last decade we have seen a decline in women in executive leadership roles.  

Hopefully, the review will go some way towards forcing the government to strengthen its legislation and address these issues.