The AFA has made a number of changes to its by-Laws governing elections for board members including a provision that board nominees must be of ‘good standing’.
Other changes also require a nominee to be:
- Not serving on a board or committee of another association,
- Subject to police screening and licensee checks,
- A current financial and Practitioner Member for three continuous years prior to the election.
AFA General Manager Policy and Professionalism, Phil Anderson said the changes were passed by the Board on 3 August and were part of the shift to professionalism within the advice sector and the AFA’s preparations to be a Code Monitoring body under the professional standards framework.
As a result of this move, Anderson said the AFA needed to consider the calibre of its board members and ‘good standing’ would be viewed as the absence of disciplinary proceedings or sanctions, including fines, suspensions and bans.
“We are looking to raise the bar and there have not been any problems in this area to date…”
“We are looking to raise the bar and there have not been any problems in this area to date, nor is there any suggestion that anyone on the board at present or in the recent past has been unsuitable,” Anderson said.
Anderson said AFA members would still be able to hold memberships with other professional associations, even if they were serving on the AFA Board, but the AFA would regard being on both boards “…as not appropriate, particularly if they have to represent conflicting issues.”
The amended by-laws will, for the first time, also allow AFA Board nominees to use social media to notify other members of their campaign but will be restricted to five posts, vetted by the Returning Officer, that link back to their candidate statement on the AFA website.
Nominations for this year’s AFA Board elections are due to open shortly with the votes to be held for the Board Treasurer, Tasmanian State Director and South Australia & Northern Territory State Director positions.
