MEDIA RELEASE (AU)

CA ANZ's opening statement to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services 20 March 2026, delivered by CA ANZ Chief Executive Ainslie van Onselen.

Thank you Chair and thank you to the Committee for the opportunity to appear today.

My name is Ainslie van Onselen and I am the Chief Executive Officer of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

I’m also Chair of Chartered Accountants Worldwide, board member of the Global Accounting Alliance, a Technical Adviser to the International Federation of Accountants as CA ANZ’s representative, a Commissioner of the Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales and I am a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments.

I am joined today by Vanessa Chapman, our General Counsel and Group Executive for Corporate Assurance who is responsible for professional standards with oversight of our disciplinary function and CA ANZ’s professional standards scheme; Damian Ogden, our Group Executive for Advocacy, Public and Government Affairs; and Geraldine Magarey, our Group Executive of Policy and International, who is also a Fellow of Chartered Accountants ANZ.

I would like to cover the following items, particularly for the newer members of the Committee.

First, a brief background into who CA ANZ is and what we do.

Second, our observations on the benefits and parameters of Professional Standard Schemes.

Third, the role of Affiliates in our membership base.

Fourth, an overview of our conduct and disciplinary system.

And finally, the steps CA ANZ has taken to strengthen the profession in recent years.

Chartered Accountants ANZ is a private, not-for-profit membership body created by Royal Charter representing more than 140,000 finance professionals across Australia, New Zealand and globally.

Our reason for being is straightforward, but significant - to safeguard the technical competence and ethical standards of the profession in the public interest.

We are an educator, a standard setter, a member services organisation, and a coregulator within a broader regulatory framework.

While we do not have statutory powers, we operate under our By-Laws and have a substantial conduct and disciplinary framework.

Today, we have been invited to discuss the oversight of the Professional Standards Regime which CA ANZ belongs to.

“The fundamental aim of professional standards legislation is consumer protection.”

Those are not just my words. They come directly from an independent academic report titled Benefits of Professional Standards Schemes, authored by Drs. Cooper and Breakey and Professor Charles Sampford of Griffith University.

Professional standards laws were introduced following the insurance crises of the 1990s and early 2000s, when professional indemnity insurance became unaffordable, and in some cases unavailable.

These laws assure consumers that professionals who belong to associations like ours, meet high standards and are subject to strong protections.

Chartered Accountants ANZ’s professional standards scheme commenced in 1997. It is one of 18 approved schemes across professions such as law, valuation and building surveying.

Our scheme applies to around 30,000 of our 140,000+ members who work in public practice in Australia.

It includes two liability caps — $75 million and $20 million — depending on the services provided. These caps are set through careful analysis of claims data and independent actuarial advice to ensure consumers remain appropriately protected.

Our current scheme runs until 2030, subject to annual reporting to the Professional Standards Councils. That reporting is captured in our Annual Professional Standards Report. The 2024 report has been provided to this Committee.

The 2025 Report for calendar year 2025 is due to the PSC on 31 March 2026 once it is approved and signed off by our Board. We can provide a copy to the Committee once submitted. In the meantime, we have provided a draft copy of the 2025 highlights and continuous improvement initiatives. 

Importantly, our professional standards framework also aligns with the requirements of the International Federation of Accountants, which has assessed our approach as meeting its highest level of compliance.

Which leads me to my third point. Some members of the Committee have expressed interest in our Affiliate members.

These are non-CA principals or partners in Chartered Accounting firms with signing authority. To be eligible to be an affiliate they must meet defined education and experience requirements such as holding a degree, have completed both our affiliates and public practice programs, and comply with the CA ANZ Code of Ethics.

Less than 2 per cent of our 140,000 members are Affiliates.

But including them in our scheme means more professionals can be held to higher standards, extending protections to more consumers.

I would now like to briefly turn to my fourth point which is an overview of our conduct and disciplinary system.

Complaints are handled by an independent Professional Conduct Committee and, where required, referred to a Disciplinary Tribunal and/or an Appeals Tribunal. These bodies are made up of senior professionals, including accountants, lawyers and ethicists.

The Tribunal has the power to impose fines of up to $50,000 for individuals and $250,000 for practice entities, in addition to suspension or expulsion.

Between December 2024 (being the time since we last provided data to the Committee) and December 2025, the Professional Conduct Committee received 707 complaints and resolved 710 matters.

More than two-thirds of those matters arose from self-reporting and proactive monitoring, including in large firms — reflecting our active and interventionist approach to regulation.

Over 2024 and 2025, we implemented a major reform program under our Going Further Roadmap to modernise our regulatory framework and strengthen accountability even more.

Our members voted to change our By-Laws, expanding our disciplinary powers, increasing fines, and the ability to investigate former members.

We refocused our disciplinary system to prioritise serious misconduct and resolve high-risk matters and streamlined our complaint handling to be more proportionate and effective.

Ethical standards were lifted across the membership by embedding the Chartered Accountant’s Commitment into annual renewal and increasing mandatory ethics CPD.

We strengthened quality assurance by expanding risk-based quality reviews, particularly for large firms, with a focus on emerging areas such as AI. And we moved from self-attestation to active verification using data and automation to identify risk and drive enforcement action where it matters most.

Our strengthened framework is having an impact.

But like every profession, there will always be those who fall short. When that happens, we have a robust system in place to respond firmly and fairly, in the interests of the public and the profession.

In closing, I want to acknowledge the large majority of our members who work diligently, ethically and professionally every day.

They expect strong standards, credible enforcement and public confidence in their profession — and so do we.

My colleagues and I welcome the Committee’s questions.