The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) is an Australian government agency. It is statutory authority located within the portfolio of the Australian Commonwealth Department of Families Housing Community Servcies and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA).
EOWA’s role is to administer the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 (Commonwealth) and through education, assist organisations to achieve equal opportunity for women.
Outlined in Part III Section 10 of the Act, the Agency is primarily a regulatory body, whose role is to annually monitor the reporting of eligible Australian organisations on equal opportunity for women in their workplaces. The Agency also has responsibility to undertake research, educational and other programs, and more generally promote the understanding of equal opportunity for women in the workplace within the community.
In 2012, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 was replaced by the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012. The passing of the new legislation means the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency has now been renamed the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
Famous quotes containing the words equal, opportunity, women, workplace and/or agency:
“What is a Communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings.”
—Ebenezer Elliot (1781–1849)
“... the opportunity offered by life to women is far in excess of any offered to men. To be the inspiration is more than to be the tool. To create the world, a greater thing than to reform it.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“When any relationship is characterized by difference, particularly a disparity in power, there remains a tendency to model it on the parent-child-relationship. Even protectiveness and benevolence toward the poor, toward minorities, and especially toward women have involved equating them with children.”
—Mary Catherine Bateson (20th century)
“Most fathers will admit that having children does not change perceptibly the way they are treated or perceived in the workplace, even if their wives work. Everyone at his workplace assumes that she will take on the responsibilities of the children and the home, even if she too is in the office all day.”
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)
“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)