Jeff Kennett

The Advisory Panel for the Australian Volunteer Support Trust (AVST) established in the wake of the summer bushfires to support the families of volunteers who die in the course of their duties will meet for the first time this Wednesday 1 July to ensure arrangements are in place to support the first beneficiaries of the trust – the families of the volunteer firefighters who tragically lost their lives last bushfire season.

The Panel, chaired by The Hon Jeff Kennett AC (chairman of Equity Trustees), includes Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO, David Gonski AC, Jennifer Westacott AO and Lisa Paul AO.

“We are honoured to have this responsibility to support the families of volunteers who pay a terrible price of helping protect and preserve our communities during disasters,” said Mick O’Brien, Managing Director, Equity Trustees.

“It is our aim, through the AVST, to provide support – particularly where there are dependent children with education needs or families that have lost a breadwinner through this selfless service.

“We know that the recent bushfires will not be our last – and the coronavirus pandemic has shown we will face further disasters as a country. It is up to all of us to look at what we can offer and how we can play our part to build our community’s ability to respond and recover. A trustee company is built to last and already legislated to serve the best interests of its clients – which is why we are a logical part of any recovery effort,” he said.

Equity Trustees, together with the Business Council of Australia (BCA), established the Australian Volunteer Support Trust and the Community Rebuilding Trust in response to the recent catastrophic bushfires but designed them to support any future disaster and emergency event recovery efforts.

The two trusts have raised nearly $10 million, with funds being directed in part to bushfire affected communities via the BizRebuild program managed by BCA and to support the families and children of emergency volunteers who died in service during the fires.

“The benefit of an independent professional trustee leading the structuring of charitable trusts like these means they are designed with the benefit of 130+ years of experience in trust law dealing with charitable trusts. We have the ability to ensure the funds are invested and professionally managed to grow the corpus – and to ensure all granting of distributions are managed through proven processes, which is what people who donate should expect in return for their generosity,” said Mr O’Brien.

However, he said the main aim of the AVST was to provide a Trust that people could have confidence in, and which would provide some relief to the families and children it was designed to benefit.

“We manage more than 600 charitable trusts – many are nearly as old as we are. These two trusts have been structured so they can receive funds from the widest possible range of sources – including other charitable structures such as private ancillary funds. This maximises the ability of the AVST to channel maximum funds to families impacted by disasters.

“The Australian community has rightly been concerned recently about charitable funds making their way to the intended beneficiaries as efficiently as possible. With Equity Trustees at the helm of the AVST, we will make sure of it now and in perpetuity,” he concluded.

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David Gonski

The 30 % Club has launched the 30% ‘Surge for Diversity’ campaign to increase the momentum for change in Australia’s boardrooms, and is calling on the corporate community for support.

Launching the campaign at a 30% Club meeting in Sydney today, ANZ chair and prominent supporter of the 30% Club, David Gonski AC, said that achieving greater board diversity was an important part of enhancing corporate governance.

“Diversity of thought and independence are essential elements of an effective board, which is why we must continue to push to achieve our goals of at least 30 per cent female ASX 200 board members,” Gonski said.

Over the next two months the Australian chapter 30 % Club, which has the primary objective of achieving 30 per cent female representation across ASX 200 boards by the end of 2018, will campaign for commitments from companies that do not currently meet the target.

As part of this campaign, the 30% Club’s Investors Working Group members will apply pressure through their channels to help drive activity and the Executive Search Working Group will be on hand to assist with the appointment process.

The 30% Club will release a key research report on board succession practices and how to improve diversity on the boards of Australia’s largest companies.

The chair of 30% Club Australia, Patricia Cross, says that after stalling in 2017, the appointment of women to ASX 200 boards has picked up again this year and the 30% Surge for Diversity campaign aims to drive that momentum.

Cross says: “Our focus is on those boards that have yet to reach 30 per cent, most specifically the 62 which have appointed one woman and feel they have thus ticked the gender diversity box.

“In that group there are over 20 boards with a number of male directors who have served longer than the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s recommended tenure. One way of quickly reaching 30 per cent is to replace each of those men with a woman.”

According to the latest Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) quarterly Gender Diversity Report, as at 28 February 2018, women account for 26.7 per cent of ASX 200 directorships.

Women accounted for 36 per cent of appointments to ASX 200 boards in 2017 but the proportion spiked up to 47 per cent in the first two months of this year.

It was the highest rate of female appointments to ASX 200 boards since the AICD started tracking gender diversity statistics

Among ASX 200 companies, 74 have reached the 30 per cent target. Only five ASX 200 companies have no female directors.

The 30% Club was launched in 2015, with the primary objective of securing 30 per cent of the seats on ASX 200 boards for women.

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