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<a href = "MRPWBI.html">Media Release: Professions want broader indemnity agenda (June 2002)</a><br>
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<a href = "MediaRelease25Nov.html">Ipp Media Release</a><br>
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<a href = "VICletter.html">Victorian market failure in Professional Indemnity insurance</a><br>
<a href = "CVSTP.html">Coonan's view a shock to professionals</a><br>
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<a href = "LDRA.html">Liability decision rouses anger</a><br>
<a href = "PLNHG.html">Proportionate liability is not Holy Grail</a><br>
<a href = "GPAS.html">Government position appears to be shifting</a><br>
<a href = "pumta.html">Professions urge ministers to act now</a><br>
<a href = "tpauc.html">TPA 'undermines capping'</a><br>
<a href = "mtstmt.html">Market 'too small and too much trouble'</a><br>
<a href = "pimfnps.html">PI market failure needs a package solution</a><br>
<a href = "cfncoll.html">Call for national cap on lawyers' liability</a><br>
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<a href = "107.html">Alert No 107 (29 May 03)</a><br>
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<a href = "1073.html">Alert No 107 Attach three- Implementation paper</a><br>
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<a href = "Treasurer.html">Paul Meiklejohn</a><br>
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<a href = "SeptHigherEd.html">Nelson reforms miss the main point, say professions</a><br>
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<a href = "VicCPAJuly03Seminar.html">Vic CPA professional indemnity seminar, 28 July 2003</a><br>
<a href = "BrisbaneHandPI.html">John Hand Brisbane PI Paper, 30 July 2003</a><br>
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<a href = "PolCampaignsArticle.html">Professions Australia learns lessons on political campaigns</a><br>
<a href = "AnaGovan.html">Ana Govan (information technology)</a><br>
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<a href = "KateWest.html">Kate West (engineering)</a><br>
<a href = "profcomppublic.html">Professionalism, competition policy and the public interest: Issues paper (2003)</a><br>
<a href = "SenateTPAbriefing.html">Senate TPA inquiry briefing notes March 2004</a><br>
<a href = "ICActReview.html">Insurance Contracts Act review key documents</a><br>
<a href = "ACCCinsurancereviews.html">ACCC insurance market pricing reviews</a><br>
<a href = "SenatorCoonanwebsite.html">Senator Coonan website</a><br>
<a href = "InsuranceCouncil.html">Insurance Council website</a><br>
<a href = "CoonanJuly2003letter.html">Letter to Coonan on timing July 2003</a><br>
<a href = "MinletterMar2004.html">Letter to Ministers on timing March 2004</a><br>
<a href = "MinContOutMar2004ltr.html">Letter to Ministers against contracting out (March 2004)</a><br>
<a href = "12March2004update.html">Update 12 March 2004</a><br>
<a href = "TPAPSLinquiry.html">Senate Committee inquiry into Trade Practices Act amendments</a><br>
<a href = "AGM2003Pres.html">AGM 2003 Presidents Address</a><br>
<a href = "OMNov2003Pres.html">Ordinary Meeting November 2003 Presidents Address</a><br>
<a href = "HobartMediaFeb2004.html">Comments on Hobart Insurance Ministers meeting Feb 2004</a><br>
<a href = "Feb2004PISurveys.html">February 2004 professional indemnity surveys</a><br>
<a href = "HigherEdltrs25Sep03.html">Higher Education letters 25 Sep 2003</a><br>
<a href = "HigherEdmed8Oct2003.html">Higher Ed media 8 October 2003</a><br>
<a href = "HigherEdltr6Nov03.html">Higher Ed letter 6 Nov 2003</a><br>
<a href = "HigherEdltrs26Nov03.html">Higher Ed letters 26 Nov 2003</a><br>
<a href = "HigherEdltr30Sep03.html">Higher Ed letter 30 September 03</a><br>
<a href = "HigherEdAFR13Oct03.html">Higher Education AFR Op Ed piece 13 October 03</a><br>
<a href = "pasub.html">National Competition Policy Review - PA Submission (2004)</a><br>
<a href = "profoftheyear.html">Announcement of 2004 Professional of the Year</a><br>
<a href = "membercodes.html">Examples of Member Codes</a><br>
<a href = "codeprinciples.html">Code Principles</a><br>
<br><FONT size=4>Ordinary Meeting, 24 November 2003, President's Address, Barry J Grear AO</FONT>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The late Slim Dusty had a song, ‘Looking Forward, Looking Back’, which could easily serve as a sub-title for a President’s report to an organisation like Professions Australia, which is going through lots of changes. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We are looking forward to an expanded organisation but we are looking back to tried and true criteria when assessing applications from new member associations. We are looking forward to new issues – and today’s round table session should throw some up – but, in confronting these issues, we will be able to look back to some of the lessons learned from our successful professional indemnity reform campaign.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">I want in this report not just to look back at the last six months but to go further back to the business plan that the then Australian Council of Professions Board agreed to in April 2002 when we took a number of measures to get the organisation back on track. The term of that plan has expired so it is timely that we assess progress against it.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">In looking at how we implemented the business plan, I will also pick up some of the significant things that have happened since our AGM in May this year.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The business plan of April 2002 had ten action areas and I will go through each of them briefly. </P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Priority-setting</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We settled on a list of items – professional indemnity, higher education, competition policy and professional ethics – just as the business plan said we would. We have done significant proactive work on the first two. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We have kept watch on the third and fourth. Our session with the ACCC Chairman today and our initiative on professional ethics also for discussion by this General Meeting should step up our work in those fields, too. I expect our round table session to throw up some new priority areas, too.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">An area that we did not specifically address in April 2002 was the reform of the organisation itself. Perhaps we did not realise how much needed to be done. The rebadging as Professions Australia, making the Board larger and stronger, and updating our fee structure and membership criteria have all been time-consuming but have paid dividends. In the last few months, the national office has juggled campaigns on professional indemnity and higher education while working on options for national office working arrangements preparatory to advertising for an Executive Director to replace David Stephens in the New Year.</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Policy development</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This has come about in professional indemnity through a series of submissions, letters, newspaper articles, and other documents that have progressively (in combination with a broad coalition of professions through the Liability Reform Steering Group or LRSG) developed a four-part solution to this issue – professional standards legislation, proportionate liability, Trade Practices Act amendments, amendment of the Insurance Contracts Act – which should be substantially in place early in 2004. This will be to the great benefit of professionals.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">In higher education, we have produced a submission to a Senate Committee and supported it with letters and newspaper articles to put our position across. In competition policy, there has been an issues paper, and in professional ethics a resource document.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Much of this work has been done in our national office. Looking forward, we need to put some effort into setting up policy committees to draw more effectively on the expertise among our member associations. The Professions Australia brand can be a great asset in advocacy but the material bearing that brand needs to be solid and credible. </P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Networking and alliances</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We wanted to leverage off the resources, efforts and expertise in member associations, to support ‘champions’ in particular causes. This has worked well in professional indemnity, where the accounting bodies, CPA and ICAA, have been our champions along with the ACEA and our friends in the legal profession. (We hope that the Law Council of Australia will join PA next year.) Other associations, such as the RAIA and Engineers Australia, have signed collective letters and encouraged their individual members to lobby politicians.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Leveraging has not worked as well in other fields. Looking forward, it would be great if, as a matter of course, whenever a member association ‘gets the bit between its teeth’ on an issue, whether it is by way of intensive lobbying, production of submissions, letter-writing campaigns, or whatever, the association keeps PA informed. The Australian Dental Association did this just the other day and it was much appreciated.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Champions need squadrons in support and there will be many occasions where the issues being pursued by one association can be rammed home more effectively through the work of a number of associations together under the PA banner. Think co-operation. Think PA!</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Media</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We built up good contacts with the <I>Australian Financial Review</I>, legal and governance writers and opinion and letters editors. Some of this was facilitated by the lobbyists working with the LRSG professional indemnity campaign but PA has gained good name recognition in its own right. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The <I>Australian</I> is starting to take notice of our higher education campaign and there has been occasional coverage of our issues in other papers like the Melbourne <I>Age</I>, <I>West Australian</I> and Adelaide <I>Advertiser</I>. Some journalists refer to us as ‘<I>the</I> peak organisation for Australian professionals’ which is gratifying – and we are working to make it more and more accurate.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Looking forward, we need to continually work on media coverage to reinforce our other lobbying. At recent meetings with politicians and their staffs about higher education we have usually been able to point to recent media coverage that is fresh in the minds of the people we have been speaking to. Very effective.</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Government</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We are reasonably well known to Ministers and/or officials in every jurisdiction for our professional indemnity work and we need to translate this across to other policy areas. We and the LRSG have had meetings on professional indemnity in the last year with the Queensland Attorney-General, Victorian Finance Minister, Commonwealth Assistant Treasurer, ACT Chief Minister, and officials from all States and Territories. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Our Western Australian and South Australian groups have met Ministers and, in Perth, been part of a team speaking in a Cabinet meeting! Our Tasmanian stalwart, Max Darcey, provided local knowledge in a crucial meeting with the Tasmanian Treasury. Just last week our South Australian group, led by Ken Milne, hosted the State Treasurer at a successful dinner. </P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Parliament</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We tried some bulk emails early in the piece but they were not particularly effective. We have provided material to individual politicians with interests in our subjects and, recently, we met a number of Senators (or their advisers) whose votes are important on the higher education bills. Looking forward, the idea of a ‘Professionals in Parliament’ group (put forward originally by Don Larkin of AusIMM) is worth a look. Such a group could have close links to PA.</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Catalyst</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We were to ‘seize chances to push positions on priority issues, while keeping abreast of emerging ones’. We have certainly done the first but the emerging ones (e.g. current reforms in occupational health and safety and workers compensation as they affect professionals in small business) do not seem to have ‘gripped’ with PA member associations yet. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Looking forward, we will continue to float new issues and see if there is a constituency for PA action on them. (The ATO’s growing interest in the tax affairs of professionals in small business might be one candidate.) I would prefer us to be proactive rather than reactive as anticipation of issues is a strength in advocacy.</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Newsletters and Alerts</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The statistics speak for themselves: 150 Alerts at around two a week, advising member associations of current developments; seven substantial Newsletters, with more to come in December and early 2004. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We know that both products get onsent to a much bigger market than our formal mailing list of around 200 names (we expanded the list in September). We think they are a valuable service but we need more feedback on items we are missing or getting wrong (as well as items that are valuable!). </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We will continue to encourage member associations to give us direct email addresses to save time in onforwarding. Alerts particularly go stale if left too long in the mailbox. We will also be keeping under review how long we provide a service to non-members. Alerts and Newsletters are useful marketing tools to potential new member associations but the free service will not continue indefinitely.</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Website update</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Our website (www.professions.com.au) is much better than the dowdy old product we had before but it remains a ‘boutique’ operation with a dedicated but still small following. Our peak usage was in June-August with some professional indemnity material. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">There is a lot more material on the site than there used to be and we try to keep it updated but, looking forward, there are likely to be some changes. If you and your members have not yet dipped into the website, do. It is your membership fees at work.</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Membership</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This plank of the business plan was about strengthening ties with current members and looking for new members. We think we have done both things fairly effectively but we are conscious that, even as we try to cover a range of policy areas, not everything we do will be equally relevant to every member association. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We hope that our strategy of moving towards ‘more members but lower fees’ will help to reset the ‘value for money’ equation. We know, however, that even $ 2 200, our lowest fee under the new scale, is not peanuts. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We hope, too, that member associations will keep reading our Value Statement with its equation I = 4i and let us know if your <I>investment</I> in PA is not delivering you adequate returns in better <I>information</I>,<I> </I>greater <I>interaction </I>between member associations,<I> </I>an improved PA <I>internet</I> presence, and increased <I>influence</I> on governments.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Our ‘membership drive’ has been the main activity of the Board and national office over the last six months since the AGM. Here are the results: at the AGM, we had ten member associations, including the New South Wales Council of Professions. At the time of writing this report (14 November), we effectively have 18 member associations, including five whose applications were approved on 11 November and whose memberships begin from the date their cheques arrive. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We know one other association has an application on its way to us, and another couple are due to decide shortly whether to apply to join. We should reach our end of 2003 target of 20 member associations comfortably and we have a few other associations in our sights. We reckon those 20 associations represent about 300 000 Australian professionals.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This growth in membership reflects the publicity we have received from the work we have done recently as well as the judicious changes to our rules and fees at the AGM. We are conscious that standards for membership must be maintained but we know that membership fees are the life-blood of any service organisation. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We still need to develop our State Branches and we commend the work to date of Warren Kerr, Ken Milne, Max Darcey and Alan McLennan in these Branches. Alan’s effort in rounding up seventy Queenslanders (on a coolish Brisbane evening) to hear about professional indemnity was particularly noteworthy. Target for 2004 is to get something doing in Victoria.</P>
<H2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT size=3>Conclusion</FONT></H2>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The above is a good record. We have a platform for growth in 2004 and beyond. There are things we need to look to, still, but things we can be pleased with. I would like to thank the Board and the national office for their work in the past six months and wish everyone in the ‘PA family’ all the best for Christmas and the New Year.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Barry J Grear AO</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></P>
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