CA’s Ainslie van Onselen joins the $1 million club
Mark Di Stefano Columnist
Oct 10, 2024
The 139,000 members of Chartered Accounts ANZ recently learned from Accountants Daily that
their CEO Ainslie van
Onselen had secured a pay raise.
Her 9 per cent bump in remuneration was detailed in the back of CA ANZ’s annual report, including $772,500 of salary, a $225,000 bonus and $27,500 in super.
CEO of Chartered Accountants ANZ Ainslie van Onselen. Sam Mooy
It was notable because she’d cracked the $1 million a year mark. Though, it
seems about right for running an accountancy body: Outgoing CPA CEO Andrew Hunter was paid
just over $1 million in 2023. Both still far below former CPA chief Alex Malley
who was paid $1.79 million in 2017. The accountants don’t pay like they
used to!
No doubt van Onselen is trying to show her members she’s worth every cent.
She and her professional body counterparts have been
making as much noise as possible about the Stephen Jones-led laws to crackdown on
rogue tax agents after the PwC scandal. It got the mental health parts of the
laws chucked out, but failed at stopping the new obligations that will force
tax agents to “dob in” their clients if they think they’re causing “substantial
harm to the interests of others”.
On Tuesday, CA trumpeted concessions it says it helped negotiate on the “dob
in” provisions, which included deferring the start for smaller firms until next
year.
Others were less inclined to stop there.
The new shadow assistant treasurer (and Singapore mystery
traveller) Luke
Howarth called the new laws “poorly targeted” on Tuesday night
in parliament. He said the government was reacting “to the misdeeds of a few
individuals at PwC which has left 72,000 tax practitioners” as “collateral
damage” leaving them with an “unnecessary and burdensome compliance nightmare”.
It’s easy being in opposition: you can minimise the worst scandal to afflict
professional services in living memory while also pandering to those affected.
Still, accountants are enjoying far
more advocacy than they ever expected on celeb-slop website Mail Online, where Peter van Onselen
(Ainslie’s husband) is the political editor. He dropped five acid-tongued
stories about the laws in a month.
It would be inappropriate to suggest CA is getting two van Onselens for the
price of one. But it must be nice.
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