You would expect a media statement to pop up on a website when a new chair of a government body is appointed, but this is not so with the Financial Reporting Council, the body that oversees the two statutory boards that set accounting and auditing rules.
A new chair was appointed to the oversight body, but nobody bothered to tell the broader community.
Former Australian Taxation Office heavyweight Andrew Mills has been appointed to chair the council for three years on a part-time basis, according to a notice of appointment put up on the Federal Register of Legislation.
That appointment was made by assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar on March 25, but the appointment was not announced by media release on the assistant treasurer’s website nor on the Financial Reporting Council’s site.
Mills was a second commissioner at the tax office before stepping down at the end of 2019 and was appointed a director for tax policy and technical at The Tax Institute.
He has had a career spanning the public and private sectors. Mills came to the tax office in 2013 after a 10-year stint as a director at law firm Greenwoods & Freehills and three years as a senior executive at MLC Limited.
The appointment of Mills to the body dealing with accounting and auditing matters follows a year of the council having an acting chairman after Bill Edge, the previous council chairman, was appointed to chair the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board for a 12-month period.
Edge’s appointment to that role in February 2021 followed the retirement from the standard-setting body of Professor Roger Simnett, a long-term auditing and assurance standard setter.
The oversight body has been in existence for more than two decades after it was established by the Howard government in order to provide various stakeholder groups with an opportunity to play a role in the governance of the setting of accounting and auditing standards.
The Financial Reporting Council has been contacted for comment.
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