{"id":34229,"date":"2016-08-19T10:28:05","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T00:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=34229"},"modified":"2016-08-19T14:01:25","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T04:01:25","slug":"afa-warns-that-egm-is-a-return-to-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2016\/08\/19\/afa-warns-that-egm-is-a-return-to-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"AFA Warns EGM is a Return to The Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Association of Financial Advisers has warned members that support for an Extraordinary General Meeting may be considered a protest vote against the proposed Life Insurance Framework but would actually hamper any future policy work, and anchor the Association in the past.<\/p>\n

\"AFA<\/a>
AFA CEO, Brad Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A statement from AFA Chief Executive Brad Fox<\/strong>, published on Linkedin<\/a>, stated the call for an EGM from a minority of members was a defining moment for the Association and had the potential to wind back its work and reputation with politicians, Government and other industry bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither the clock will be wound back to the sorts of criticisms we received years ago in the FoFA debate. Back to a time when we had minimal influence. Or you can choose to support the AFA Board, helping the Association grow further in respect and relevance,\u201d Fox said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSigning up to the call for an EGM may well be a protest vote against LIF, but the resolution it supports is a protest vote against the further advancement toward a profession and the AFA as a professional body,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be a defining moment.\u00a0 A unified professional body, or an industry association anchored in the past,\u201d Fox stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be a defining moment.\u00a0 A unified professional body, or an industry association anchored in the past.”<\/h6>\n

In referencing the past, Fox said in 2009 \u2013 at the time of the Ripoll Inquiry \u2013 the AFA was a small association that was still recovering from a loss of relevance that had nearly wiped out the group, and its position within politics was marginal.<\/p>\n

He said that since that time successive AFA boards had worked to drive the Association\u2019s growth and it had earned a seat at the table when it came to advice related issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have moved from receiving criticism from a previous Minister as being passionate, but self-interested zealots to now being a respected professional association that brings facts, reason, foresight and influence to the table,\u201d Fox said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in every financial advice consultation group and are sought out by government, treasury, regulators, the media and other professional associations on issues affecting financial advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said this position and reputation had come about due to many years of \u2018authentic, respectful and thoughtful advocacy\u2019 and \u201c\u2026it has taken many deeds and the efforts of many principled, driven people\u201d, which in turn had led to membership growth from 1300 in 2009 to 3500 at present.<\/p>\n

He stressed that many of these gains would be lost as the AFA would be hamstrung on any major policy issues and would be regarded as unable to contribute to policy debates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf an EGM is called, and if the resolution being proposed is subsequently passed, members will have a Board that cannot fully exercise the rights to govern,\u201d Fox said<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proposed change to the AFA Constitution would remove the ability of your elected member Board to set the policy of the AFA. The Board will be forced to hold additional member general meetings to seek support before being able to agree or further negotiate terms with the Government, Opposition, minor parties and crossbenchers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is akin to the AFA being asked to wait outside the room while the other parties make the decisions. The association would lose years of hard earned respect and relevance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note to Advisers:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We welcome your comments and in the interest of fairness, request that you properly identify yourself either in your post ID or at the end of each comment\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Association of Financial Advisers has warned members that support for an Extraordinary General Meeting may be considered a protest vote against the proposed Life Insurance Framework but would actually hamper any future policy work, and anchor the Association in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-associations","category-compliance-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}