Briefing from the Board: March 2025

Welcome to our first Board briefing of 2025. This will be the last Briefing from the Board penned by both of us, but you'll need to read on to find out why!

The holiday season already feels like a distant memory, and as we write this our thoughts are with those affected – directly or indirectly – by Cyclone Alfred and the severe weather that followed. 

As always, we're focused on providing helpful consumer advice. You may find our latest advice on how to prepare for a flood or cyclone insurance claim useful. A reminder that if your property is damaged by extreme weather, it's important to register a claim as soon as possible. 

At our Board meeting on 5 March, we focused on:

• Board changes – a farewell, a welcome and a new Co-Chair
• Performance for the year to date
• 'Evolve27' – our technology program of work 
• Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)
• Meeting with ASIC.

Board changes: A farewell, a welcome and a new Co-Chair 

There has been quite a bit of change to the CHOICE Board since our last briefing. In January, Director Kat George stepped down as she welcomed a new member to her family with the birth of her second child. Kat's keen insights and deep knowledge of consumer advocacy have been invaluable to the Board. We thank her for her four years on the Board and wish her all the best.

As we farewelled Kat, we also welcomed Chris Whitehead to his first meeting as a Director. Elected during the 2024 process, Chris brings strong commercial and technology experience and will join our Commercial and Governance committees. We look forward to his contributions. You can read more about Chris's background on the CHOICE website.

Finally, the Board appointed Fiona Jolly as Co-Chair, succeeding Anita Tang in the role. This transition is designed to stagger the terms of our Co-Chairs, ensuring continuity and stability over the coming years. Fiona has been on the CHOICE Board since 2020 and currently chairs the Technology Committee. She will serve alongside Nic Cola as Co-Chair, while Anita remains on the CHOICE Board as a Director. 

Looking ahead, we have reviewed the Board's skills mix and will be making further adjustments:

• Co-opting a new Director with a strong background in consumer advocacy.
• Appointing an Advisor to both the Finance, Risk and Audit Committee and the Commercial Committee – a step that will broaden our expertise and help safeguard key skills.

Fiona and Nic look forward to keeping you updated on these developments.

Performance for the year to date

As is typical in our first meeting of the year, we reflected on progress over the first half in terms of both impact and financial performance.

Impact highlights

One of the highlights has been the recently announced government measures to ensure that prices for essential food and groceries in regional areas are aligned with city prices. The Prime Minister directly referenced CHOICE's investigative work in the announcement, and our team collaborated closely with First Nations advocates to push for these changes. 

We also saw a major step forward in consumer protection with the passage of new laws requiring businesses to do more to safeguard consumers from scams. CHOICE and other consumer advocates have long called for these reforms, and it was fantastic to see more than 39,000 supporters sign petitions, email their MPs or take other actions on scams to help get this Bill over the line. Thank you to all of you who took action on this critical issue.

Financial performance

As many of you know, our new three-year strategy prioritises financial and organisational sustainability. While we have budgeted for a statutory deficit due to our continued investment in the technology upgrade, we have been particularly focused on our operating result as a key measure of sustainability. On this measure, we're pleased to report that we are on track to deliver a net surplus (excluding exceptional items, such as the Evolve27 project), thanks to the incredible efforts of our team and the strong performance of membership, which is 3% higher than the previous year. 

Membership growth, together with last year's organisational redesign and our ongoing focus on cost control, has helped offset a decline in our CHOICE Recommended program. To better understand our options in this area, management is currently reviewing CHOICE Recommended with a view to developing a range of improvements in the coming year.

'Evolve27' – our technology program of work

As we've emphasised before, transforming our technology is a key aspect to investing in the future of CHOICE. This is a complex but necessary program of work. While our initial focus was on upgrading our content management system (CMS), it became clear that a broader transformation was needed. As a result, the Board approved a more ambitious agenda in November 2023 that encompasses other critical platforms.

At this meeting, we reviewed a new reporting framework, which provides additional visibility of progress and key risks. The Board acknowledged the team's significant efforts in driving progress, with several key milestones within Evolve27 having been achieved since our last meeting:

• January: Successfully launched Employment Hero, now in use for all leave and payroll functions.
• February: Activated the sales component of our Customer Relationship Management platform and completed the migration of our payment gateway from Qvalent to Merchant Warrior. This marks the first phase of consolidating our payment systems onto a single platform – a good example of how we are modernising and simplifying our technology environment.

We'll soon be tackling the CMS change – one of the most complex and costly elements of the program – and will continue to keep you updated as we make further progress in this critical area.

Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)

CHOICE is lucky to have a team that deeply understands the importance of reconciliation and is passionate about this work. At our meeting, we had the opportunity to hear directly from two members of our RAP Working Group, Gene Ross and Christina Hoffmann. 

Gene shared powerful reflections on the significance of Welcome to Country, encouraging us to see it not just as a welcome to land and place, but as an invitation into First Nations culture.

Christina presented insights into CHOICE's recent RAP Barometer results – a biennial national research study conducted by Reconciliation Australia. One of the key insights was how central our work as an organisation was to creating opportunities for the wider staff to learn and engage with First Nations history and learning – something we remain committed to as a Board.

Meeting with ASIC

Since 2016, we have held an annual discussion with commissioners from our corporate and financial services regulator, ASIC, as part of a CHOICE Board meeting. This provides a valuable opportunity for frank and constructive discussions about ASIC's priorities and ways to strengthen our working relationship.

In recent years, we put this tradition on hold as both ASIC and CHOICE navigated leadership transitions. We were pleased to reconvene this year, welcoming Chair Joe Longo, commissioners Alan Kirkland (a very familiar face!) and Simone Constance, along with their colleagues Peter Soros and Nathan Bourne.

Our discussion covered ASIC's strategic and regulatory priorities, as well as key consumer protection issues across insurance, superannuation, financial advice and responsible lending.

We believe it is critically important for ASIC to engage formally with organisations like CHOICE at the Board level, complementing the regular discussions that take place between ASIC and our senior staff throughout the year. This meeting reaffirmed the value of these engagements, and we look forward to continuing the dialogue.

We'll next meet in April for our strategy workshop, then May for a formal Board meeting. We'll be back in touch after those meetings. As always, please feel free to email us with any comments or suggestions on anything raised in this briefing.

Regards,

CHOICE Co-Chairs Anita Tang and Nic Cola

CHOICE has been championing your consumer rights since 1959. Fiercely independent and proudly non-profit, your membership makes this possible. You can further support CHOICE by making a donation today or consider leaving a bequest.