Kia ora koutou, hello and welcome to the first quarterly edition of Acuity.

The team has made the change in response to members asking for more frequent and immersive online content, alongside continuing in-depth print editions.

CA ANZ’s campaigns, advocacy and initiatives are also progressing at pace. I’ve had a close-up view of some of these, most notably attending the Hamilton launch event for our Make Epic Things Happen campaign. I loved both The Accountants trailer and the reaction from the audience.

The trailer is getting huge reach, playing ahead of every Australian and New Zealand screening of Deadpool & Wolverine, which is having a hot streak at the top of the box office. It’s vital that we go to the next generation, and this is the ideal platform to show them accounting can turn their passions into careers.

As well as attracting new members, CA ANZ is equally focused on advocating for government policy that enables our members to do their best work in the community. The ongoing tax agent services matter in Australia has been a key area and you may have seen CA ANZ lead the campaign to have the determination, outlining a number of new obligations, withdrawn or amended.

At the time of writing this column, CEO Ainslie van Onselen and the team were in Canberra, directly explaining our concerns to the Opposition, the Australian Greens and independent senators. The board chair and I have also been supporting these advocacy efforts. Central to our concerns is a requirement to disclose private information, including personal health conditions. This has been a truly grassroots effort and I thank members who took up our call to write to their local members of parliament.

In New Zealand, I was honoured to attend and speak at Te Hui Taketake a Te Puna Tahua Toa, the International Indigenous Business Summit, and connect with Indigenous accountants from around the globe. Seeing our Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori and Pasifika members connect was amazing, but also humbling in relation to the task ahead.

Of course, behind the scenes the team is continuing to engage closely with the new(ish) New Zealand Government, both on education and corporate governance, as well as driving a depoliticised conversation on tax reform.

Whether it’s been in Brisbane, Hong Kong, Sydney, Queenstown, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur or Rotorua, I’ve had wide-ranging conversations with members about the challenges of finding talent, and concerns about onerous compliance regulations and unwieldy government policy, so I’m pleased to see our teams in Australia and New Zealand drawing on member perspectives to address these challenges head on.

I’m looking forward to continuing these conversations, as well as supporting the National Breast Cancer Foundation annual charity event that CA ANZ is hosting in October. On that note – thank you to everyone who donated to the foundation during our annual renewal campaign, raising nearly A$22,000 for this important cause.

Finally, there’s a big conversation coming up – and that’s the 96th CA ANZ annual general meeting on Friday 25 October. We will unpack CA ANZ’s 2024 Annual Report that was published in September, and the year that was.

AGMs are an important opportunity to ask questions and inform the work of your membership body, so I hope you can join me.