The safety solutions rebate program offers small business owners and sole traders up to $500 (excluding GST) for identifying and implementing safety solutions in the workplace.

You can claim the rebate for a range of safety solutions including:

The Safety Solutions Rebate Activities Guide also provides a list of possible activities that are likely to qualify for a rebate.

To qualify for the rebate, you must:

For more information about the safety solutions rebate or our small business workshops and assistance visits, please call 13 10 50.

Safety Solutions Rebate Fact Sheet and Application Form

Safety Solutions Activity Guide

Which is more effective, the school of hard knocks, or purposeful learning of theory up front to avoid making mistakes?

Personally, and this might sound odd, I love making mistakes. I practically welcome them, because I know they make me stronger. They’re almost an investment in learning. I make calculated decisions, and move forwards being open to the fact that I could be wrong and ready to learn if I am. I don’t let loss of confidence affect me, because I remove that element from my decisions. I make my decisions based on what I should be doing in my work for the highest returns (financially, mentally and emotionally). Then I question my confidence levels and if I have to, I deal with them separately.

I’m happy to make mistakes, but here’s the thing; I prefer to learn voraciously up front and not make those mistakes. I’d rather learn from my wins than my losses. If mistakes can be prevented, I’d like to know about it.

Many people are proud of learning from experience rather than learning from theory. I think pride should only be derived from doing both. I learn from people who have made mistakes before me, I reflect on it, I emotionalise the lesson by vividly imagining the impact on my life, business and family if I was to make that mistake, and then I act and go for the experience part, and hopefully it’s a positive, lucrative, highly rewarding one! Regardless, I learn from it.

The Minister for Superannuation, Chris Bowen MP, and Minister for Small Business, Craig Emerson MP, have announced that the Government will deliver its free superannuation clearing house service for small business through Medicare Australia.

The clearing house service will be available for small businesses with less than 20 employees from July 2010.

"To meet their choice of fund obligations, small businesses currently face the time and paperwork burden of paying contributions into numerous funds. The super clearing house will cut this red tape burden by enabling small businesses to pay their superannuation contributions electronically to a single location," Minister Bowen said.

"Medicare Australia is well placed as one of the Commonwealth Government’s key service delivery agencies – with significant electronic and payment processing capacity whilst ensuring the privacy of information and the security of funds."

Key features of the superannuation clearing house for participating small businesses include: