The Rainbow Tick celebrated its first anniversary and two other significant milestones this week at a fun-filled evening for its clients and friends. Labour MP Jacinda Ardern, Rainbow Tick's Michael Stevens and ASB's Barbara Chapman. Jacinda Ardern MP and the CEO of ASB, Barbara Chapman both spoke. They both emphasised the value of the programme in increasing LGBTTIQ inclusivity in the workplace. The ASB sponsors the Falcons Rugby Team and Barbara Chapman talked of how this along with working to get the Rainbow Tick made her aware that athletes often stay closeted because they are afraid to lose sponsorship. In light of that she re-drafted ASB’s sponsorship agreement to explicitly state that sexuality and gender identity are not grounds for losing sponsorship and that the bank supports people in being who they are. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia which owns the ASB has now adopted the same clause in their sponsorship agreements. This sets a new standard of inclusion. Green MP Jan Logie and EEO Commissioner Dr Jackie Blue. Michael Stevens, the Rainbow Tick Programme Director talked of two more milestones that had been reached. The first is in developing a model that works for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). As he noted “Our clients to date have been large corporates like ANZ and Sky City, or big institutions like AUT, but New Zealand is predominantly an SME economy, and we need to be in that space, so we are very happy to announce that we are piloting our SME programme right now and it will soon be ready to roll out.” “Our other milestone is marking the publication by Standards New Zealand of ‘NZS 8200:2015 Rainbow-inclusive workplaces: A standard for gender and sexual diversity in employment’. This is a world first, and it has real potential to improve the working lives of our communities, not just here but when other countries official Standards organisations also pick it up.” “Our vision is that New Zealand will have the safest and most welcoming workplaces for Rainbow community staff in the world. Given the interest and value seen in the project by firms such as Fletcher Building, Westpac and Coca-Cola Amatil(NZ) I think we are on the way.” GayNZ.com staff - 23rd April 2015