President's letter
Continuing to safeguard our profession’s reputation is a must – and there is always more that can be done.
Quick take
- In January, CA ANZ launched "Going Further – a roadmap to enhanced trust and accountability". The roadmap makes clear actionable recommendations to safeguard our profession’s reputation.
- Trust in our profession matters enormously when we’re competing for talent. I was recently briefed on CA ANZ’s exciting work to promote accounting careers to high school students.
- Another big focus of my presidency is advocating for small and medium practices (SMPs). In meetings with SMP owners and teams, it’s been great to hear how many are finding the new monthly SMP newsletter useful.
Wherever I’ve travelled to meet members, I consistently hear the need for CA ANZ to ‘fly the flag high’ and share all the good that chartered accountants achieve in the community.
This is especially important after high profile, unacceptable and unethical conduct by just a few members in Australia – which prompted two federal parliamentary inquiries into aspects of our profession. In late February and early March, I joined CA ANZ board chair John Palermo FCA and chief executive Ainslie van Onselen to front tough but necessary questions from Australian parliamentary committee members.
Their scrutiny is to be welcomed. We told them about the important role we play as a professional membership body; that our by-laws mean we can hold members to account and, in some cases, expel them from our community. We also reminded that last year CA ANZ members voted to amend our by-laws to strengthen our ability to respond to wrongdoing.
This includes increased fines for firm events and stronger investigative powers for our independent Professional Conduct Committee. We also discussed the importance of having robust processes in relation to members self-reporting breaches of ethical conduct, and our support for the government’s review of the framework that supports information sharing between regulators and professional bodies.
It is important to remember that the sanctions available to CA ANZ as a professional membership body are limited – for example, the ability to impose more significant fines requires statutory powers under legislation. And, as we told the committees, if the government chooses that path, we will accept the ability to do so.
Continuing to safeguard our profession’s reputation is a must – and there is always more than can be done. That’s why, in January, CA ANZ launched Going Further – a roadmap to enhanced trust and accountability. The roadmap makes clear actionable recommendations for us and CA ANZ, as well as major stakeholders like government and the large firms. Member-facing actions will be well communicated ahead of time, but I commend the roadmap to you.
Of course, trust in our profession matters enormously when we’re competing for talent. I was recently briefed on CA ANZ’s exciting work to promote accounting careers to high school students. A key message is that if young people want to turn their passions into a career, accounting is their route ‘to make epic things happen’. I encourage you to use CA ANZ’s recently updated high school toolkit. It’s a fantastic launch pad to tell your story and drive interest in joining our ranks.
Another big focus of my presidency is advocating for small and medium practices (SMPs). In meetings with SMP owners and teams, it’s been great to hear how many are finding the new monthly SMP newsletter useful. More than 20,000 Australian and 6000 New Zealand SMP members are receiving it, and there’s also now a dedicated SMP Resources Centre on the CA ANZ website.
Finally, I hope you enjoy this issue of Acuity. The topics covered in this edition illustrate just how much CAs are at the forefront of big issues, helping to drive positive change.