Please see attached the update; City of Newcastle Sub-Branch Travel Policy V1,0 of 2018,

Regards,

Ken Fayle, JP
President, The City of Newcastle RSL Sub-Branch

Fellow league members,

It has been a while between updates. In the weeks since congress, ANZAC House and State Council have been working hard to deliver the agenda your delegates voted on. I want to detail some of that work in this update. But first I want to thank each and every delegate for a resoundingly successful meeting of the League in Albury. You will have heard from your sub-Branch congress delegates, and read in Reveille, the outcomes of our annual meeting. But what was most important to me was the commitment, energy, and positive approach of delegates. All of the positive change we have achieved so far has been possible because of the decisions made by members at our last two congresses. Thank you.

If you haven’t watched the videos of congress sessions on our website, I would encourage you to do so. They answer many of the questions that members have raised most frequently in recent months.

One of the questions I am often asked by members is how we will get more veterans to join the League. We’ve made a small improvement, but an important one, that should make it easier for people to join.  We now have a map which shows where every RSL NSW sub-Branch is and lists meeting times and contact details. You can find it on our website and via this link. Next, we will work to make our membership forms simpler – including putting membership applications online.

Last weekend we took members of State Council and senior ANZAC House staff to Dubbo to meet with the Western District Council. We wanted to hear what sub-Branches in the bush need and let them know how we can help during this drought. Veterans and their families doing it tough because of drought can access immediate assistance from RSL DefenceCare. In the past weeks we have helped veterans in need to purchase feed stock and to pay household bills. Please reach out to RSL DefenceCare if your members, or veterans in your area need assistance.

Each sub-Branch is very different, and in the coming months I and other council members will be working hard to visit as many as possible. ANZAC House is planning a roadshow over several weeks in September and October to visit as many sub-Branches and hear from as many members as possible as we enter a critical period in our repair of the League.

We have been working hard to get the League ready to apply for permission to return to conducting major fundraising appeals. The first major step in that process, the establishment of a new financial software system for the League, was successfully completed this week. RSL WBI has applied to the Office of Fair Trading for permission to re-commence fundraising. The next step is to determine processes to be followed at sub-Branch level to make it possible to conduct the Poppy Appeal on November 11^th.

We have also been working hard on the draft constitution to be presented to members at an Extraordinary Congress later this year. We called for volunteers across the League to join a Member Constitutional Review Panel and accepted every single member who applied to join. We have a thirty-strong group of members who are reviewing the technical detail of the constitution, as well as advising of the impact of any proposed changes at the sub-Branch level. I am grateful for their time and commitment.

On their advice, we have decided to delay the Extraordinary Congress from 31^st October (as indicated in Reveille) to late November in order to give more time for members to digest proposed improvements to the constitution. As soon as we confirm a venue, we will advise members, so you can book travel and accommodation. We will confirm the timeline for constitutional consultation shortly and communicate this to you in the State Secretary’s newsletter. Importantly, there will be three phases of consultation on the constitution. The first phase (which we are in now) involves the preparation of a draft constitution to be sent to all members for their feedback. The second phase will involve listening to members feedback on the draft and recommending changes. The third phase will see the final constitution developed and circulated to members, and the conduct of information sessions across the state to give sub-Branches the information they will need to cast their vote at the Extraordinary Congress.

The third major project we have been working on is the move to a new ANZAC House. As you know, the current ANZAC House was sold in early 2017 and has many shortcomings which make servicing members and veterans difficult. We are narrowing on options for a new location and I hope to announce this soon. It will be a headquarters you can be proud of, and one which will enable us to deliver better service to members as well as veterans and their families who need our help.

Finally, we have been working furiously on veteran’s policy issues. The next six months will be the most important period in veterans affairs policy for some time and it is critical that the League represent you in these discussions. The Productivity Commission is examining the compensation and rehabilitation system from first principles. The Cornall Scoping Study is investigating the advocacy and support services system. There are also Senate inquiries into transition from defence, and Mefloquine. These have the potential to fundamentally reshape the way veteran services work across Australia, including at DVA. We have met with the Productivity Commission, as well as Mr. Robert Cornall AO and his team. We brought together a number of our advocates from across the state, as well as other ESOs, for a roundtable to examine the current advocacy system and suggested changes. I have spoken with experts working on the Mefloquine issue. I’ve also heard from several of our members. Despite all the internal work we have to do, we must ensure veterans and their families have a voice on these issues. RSL NSW is finalising policy submission papers to each of the major policy reviews under way.

At the 2018 Congress, you tasked State Council to make representations on 14 policy motions. We have sent formal letters to the ADF, Ministers, and Government Departments on these issues, and will continue to seek outcomes on your behalf.

You will have seen the recent resignation of RSL National President Robert Dick. RSL NSW is closely engaged with the other states in discussing the most effective way forward for RSL National. We all want a national body we can be proud of, and that fights to represent veterans at the federal level.

Thanks for your service to the League.

 

 

James Brown
President

ALL MEMBERS PLEASE READ

Our next meeting is next Monday, 9th July in our new home, the United Services Club. The address is 55 Watt Street Newcastle between King and Church Streets.

NOTE NEW MEETING START TIME: 5.00pm. 

We will open the front doors and Bar by 4.00pm so you will have plenty of time to have a look at our new office and then around the club itself. We will close the front doors just before 5.00pm,if you are running late, the rear door will still be open. Come in and make your way up the stairs and into the big room opposite the bar.

The meeting will be a short one as we are still settling into our new space and still haven’t set up all our equipment. The meeting should be well finished by 6.30 pm with the bar closing around 7.00 pm.

I look forward to seeing you all on Monday

Ken Fayle, JP
President, The City of Newcastle RSL Sub-Branch

Hello to you all,

I will attempt to put three days work into a readable document of a couple of pages. I have no doubt that I will omit something however if you do have any queries/questions or comments, please contact me via email ken@newcastlersl.com.au and I will get the answer back to you asap.

Frank Carter and I were the Delegates to the Congress with Pat Cleggett and Drew Ferguson-Tait as observers. The Congress had the best representation of Sub Branches ever with 290 out of a possible 354 Sub bRanches represented. We were all surprised by the absence of a number of larger, well funded Sub  Branches who did not send at least one delegate. A number of Newcastle Sub Branches, all well funded, wasted an important vote on the direction of the RSL by not attending. Overall we judged the congress a success and regardless of personal opinions on various matters, most delegates viewed the progress the congress made with the modification to the constitution and other matters a good step forward.

After an easy trip down on the train and then an uneventful flight to Albury we all checked into the hotel and walked across to the Commercial Club to register and attend a “meet and greet” session. A few quite ales, dinner and early to bed.

The first real day of the congress was interesting. Scott Seccombe, the State Rep. from Coffs Harbour was MC for the day and provided the entire congress with a lot of laughs all the time keeping us on track. Lots of normal housekeeping issues in the morning which culminated in a situation report on the RSL NSW given by James Brown. A couple of important points came out of that sitrep. First we will have to look at moving at least some of our fixed deposits into managed funds as our Sub Branch needs to increase its return on cash investments. There is no time frame however your Executive is now aware what we need to do in the near future.

Secondly, the RSL NSW overall only spends 27cents in the dollar (of charitable funds raised) on actual charitable issues. Overall, the aim of the RSL NSW is to raise that sort of spending to a minimum of 51 cents in the dollar. There is still confusion as to what constitutes “welfare” and “charitable” as per the definition given to us in late March and hopefully we will be able to get a more definitive answer to all the questions we have by the time of the Extraordinary Congress which will be held in Sydney in late October this year. Full credit to James Brown who fielded over an hour of questions from the floor and answered a few curly ones openly and honestly.

The congress was then addressed by the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshall Mark Biskin AC who, as expected, spoke on the importance of the RSL to the Defence Force members.

He was followed by the best speech I have ever heard, given by Dr. Brendon Nelson who is the Director of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. Without doubt it was one of the most emotive speeches superbly delivered and by the end of the presentation there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. The RSL is attempting to get Dr.Nelson’s permission to post the speech on the RSL website. If it is successful we will let you know as it is well worth a look.

After lunch at the Bandiana Army Museum (Pat and Frank represented our RSL) another long and very honest and open Q&A session in the afternoon with James Brown and other members of the management team from Sydney. At the end of the day we all transferred up to the monument on the hill for a quick wreath laying. Well attended and cold as the sun set in the west.

Day 2.

The second day started with addresses by Todd Greenburg (by video) the head of the ARL followed by the NSW Minister for Veterans Affairs the Hon. David Elliot MP followed by the Opposition Spokesman Greg Warren.

It was refreshing to hear both sides of politics (both of whom are members of the League) presenting a united front in their support of the RSL NSW going forward. There is no doubt we have a lot of challenges to face with a raft of new changes being introduced into the NSW Parliament to update the RSL Act of 1934, all of which come from the recommendations from the Bergin Enquiry. We will have an update on these changes once the RSL NSW have had time to look at and digest what the changes mean for us.

The President and Treasurers Reports were then presented. The financial reports were the best we have seen in years with the League in reasonable condition however there is still a lot of work to do within the various sections of the League to satisfy the various requirements re the Charities Commission.

The Governor of NSW, His Excellency General David Hurley CSC was introduced and gave a well structured speech as a follow up to what he said last year. As Patron of the League, he is vitally interested in the League continuing to serve the ex-service community for years to come.

The afternoon session started with an address from Mr. David Locke, the Assistant Commissioner Charity Services of the ACNC. Fire and Brimstone!! He put the wind up most of the delegates with what could happen if we didn’t get our individual houses in order in regard to fundraising and then the accounting and disbursement of the funds into the right sectors. After a lot of discussion later in the evening, your delegates feel that we comply too a great degree on the accounting side however, like most Sub Branches, we will have to review and introduce new measures as required. We are light years ahead of many of the Sub Branches thanks to the foresight of Mark Minell who set our accounts up the way he did to isolate our fundraising/spending on commemorative (charitable) events.

The balance of the afternoon was spent on a Strategy workshop where we were introduced to our electronic voting machines. Frank and I are sure that some of the delegates are still in the 1800’s with the objections, all unfounded, coming thick and fast. The session went ahead, was informative and

showed, once the hoo-ha had been overcome, that the majority of the delegates present accept that the League has to change to remain relevant and regardless of personal preference, a lot of changes are going to be forced upon us.

It was evident that most delegates (us included) accept that it is better to be part of the conversation as to the direction of the League rather than having changes forced on us without input from the rank and file.

Day3.

An early start at 0730 and a full day through to 1430 with only one short comfort break. A huge agenda of formal motions were put and your delegates voted as directed. It is of interest that you, our Sub Branch members, voted in almost all motions as per the rest of the other Sub Branches. The motions on proxies were all withdrawn as they were not correctly formatted and the motion for proportional representation was soundly beaten after a sometimes personal debate.

I have a list of results of the motions if anyone is interested that I will bring to the next Sub Branch meeting. What will be more important is what will be presented as Constitutional change for the Extraordinary Congress in October.

The Motion from your Sub Branch to withdraw the current (new) definition of Welfare was not accepted as urgent by the Suspension Committee and as such was not presented to Congress. After I spoke to James Brown, I will continue to pursue the motion via District Council to put it forward to the State Executive for immediate action.

Day 4.

Fogged in at the Albury airport for nearly 3 hours we all got home about 5.00 pm on Thursday afternoon. The general consensus from all your delegates that although there was a huge amount of work (as against other congress’s we have attended) to get through, we have all learnt a lot about the way we need to change to make our Sub Branch a better managed branch which complies in all ways.

 

I look forward to seeing you all at the next meeting on TUESDAY 12th June.

Ken Fayle, JP
President, City of Newcastle RSL Sub-Branch

Fellow members of the League,

For the past year, RSL NSW has been working with the ACNC, as well as other state and federal regulators, the NSW Police, and our members to identify and rectify the problems within our complex and important institution. Enormous progress towards repairing the RSL has been made, but there is much more to be done. We welcome announcements within the last 48 hours by the federal charities regulator and the NSW State government to implement measures which will make RSL NSW more accountable to our members, the public, and the veterans and their families who rely on us.

The changes announced this week will help ensure that what happened in this league in the last 10 years can never happen again. These changes will also provide RSL NSW with an opportunity to make a clean break from the ineptitude, cronyism, and leadership failures of recent years. RSL NSW’s absolute focus now must be on our charitable mission – making sure veterans and their families are respected, supported and remembered.

These directed changes will impact every member of the League. State Council will need to work through the impact of the changes with member delegates at our Annual State Congress to be held in Albury next week.

Federal Regulatory Changes – The Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission (ACNC)

The ACNC’s investigation, which started in 2016, was prompted by concerns relating to the misuse of charitable funds as highlighted in the Bergin Inquiry. It focused on RSL NSW’s governance in relation to financial management and conflicts of interest, particularly the actions of former State Councils. This week the ACNC issued an Enforceable Undertaking to RSL NSW which mandates certain actions to be taken by our charity in order to ensure good governance. While this Undertaking directly impacts State Branch, it does have implications for sub-Branches. The ACNC Enforceable Undertaking summary is attached for your reference. Many of the actions detailed in the Undertaking have already been implemented and RSL NSW is cooperating fully with the ACNC. Failure to comply with the Enforceable Undertaking would risk losing RSL NSW’s charitable status. The ACNC’s Deputy Commissioner will address delegates on these issues at the Annual State Congress next week.

NSW State Legislative and Regulatory Changes – Amendments to the RSL NSW Act

RSL NSW acknowledges the commitment of both the NSW government and opposition to fix issues identified within the League. Today the NSW Minister for Veterans Affairs, David Elliot, announced legislative changes to the RSL NSW Act. The State Government intends these changes will strengthen the governance of RSL NSW and ensure it is accountable to members and the public. The RSL NSW Act of the NSW Parliament incorporates RSL NSW as a statutory corporation, enabling it to exist as a legal entity. The State Government changes to the RSL NSW Act will:

1. Introduce a representative voting system allowing every member to have one vote for RSL NSW leaders. This will replace the current system whereby leaders are elected by an electoral college system of sub-Branches
2. Clarify that the leadership of RSL NSW is vested in a board of directors, rather than a State Council, and prescribe the duties of those directors
3. Reduce the size of the board (from 14 currently) to a minimum of three and maximum of ten directors in accordance with modern practice
4. Establish positions for at least one and up to two independent directors on the RSL NSW board to strengthen corporate governance
5. Mandate that board directors must disclose any financial and personal interests to reduce the risk of conflicts of interest issues arising
6. Enable and regulate appropriate, independently determined remuneration of directors so that RSL NSW can attract the best possible leaders
7. Require RSL NSW to table an annual report to the NSW Parliament to maximise transparency and accountability

These directed changes are a seismic shift to the way RSL NSW has operated for decades and will require constitutional changes to be approved by RSL NSW members. These issues will be worked through with members at next week’s State Congress and any constitutional change will be dependent on approval by members. The change to representative voting, practically, will take some time to implement. RSL NSW’s State Council supports changes to the RSL NSW Act to make the League more transparent and accountable, and to ensure the governance failures of the recent past cannot be allowed to happen again. Representatives of the state government and opposition will address RSL NSW delegates at State Congress next week.

State Council understands members will have many questions about these changes. We are seeking to confirm the detail you need and will re-arrange the schedule for State Congress to enable more time for questions to be asked of State Council and answered. We have a large number of members attending next week’s Congress and look forward to welcoming you for what will be an important meeting.

James Brown
President

Background Information – Federal Government Charity Regulator

ACNC Investigation

The ACNC investigation into RSL NSW commenced in 2016. The investigation was prompted by concerns that RSL NSW former State President, Don Rowe, had misused charitable funds. Furthermore, the ACNC held concerns that several members of the RSL NSW’s State Council (RSL NSW’s governing body) were receiving consultancy payments from an entity controlled by RSL NSW, RSL LifeCare Limited, which placed them in a conflict of interest. The ACNC’s investigation focussed on RSL NSW’s governance in relation to financial management and conflicts of interest.

When the Bergin Inquiry commenced in August 2017, the ACNC undertook to await the outcome of the Bergin Inquiry before finalising its investigation.

In February 2018 the Bergin Report was released.

In November 2017, RSL NSW proposed to the ACNC that it would be prepared to offer to enter an Enforceable Undertaking to address the ACNC concerns and in March 2018, following the conclusion of the Bergin Inquiry, RSL NSW proposed a form of undertakings for the ACNC’s consideration. The ACNC has accepted RSL NSW’s undertakings.

ACNC’s role as Australia’s charity regulator and RSL NSW

RSL NSW has been registered as a charity with The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) since 3 December 2012 when the ACNC commenced. ACNC is the independent federal regulator of charities. RSL NSW’s registration with the ACNC gives the organisation our charitable status and allows us to access Commonwealth charity tax concessions and benefits through the Australian Taxation Office.

RSL NSW is registered with the ACNC under the charitable category of advancing social or public welfare. This is referred to as the charity subtype and the objects of RSL NSW are listed with the ACNC as promoting the interests and welfare of current and former Australian Defence Force members and their families and provides assistance and other relevant services.

All charities registered with ACNC must meet the governance standards under the ACNC Act to remain registered with the ACNC. Revocation of charity status removes an organisation’s entitlement to access Commonwealth charity tax concessions.

An Enforceable Undertaking is an offer made by a Charity to the ACNC that the Charity will undertake certain steps to ensure that it addresses issues of concern. If the ACNC accepts the Charity’s offer, the Undertaking is signed by both parties and commit the charity to carrying out the agreed steps.