Ms Wood, who herself served as Chairman of the Australian Financial Reporting Council, was convinced that in the 21st century, capital markets are mutually dependent and globally interconnected and that as a country that looks both East and West, Australian capital markets were the perfect example of this. This was the reason international standards were needed.

She noted that one of the most frequent criticisms she heard was the ongoing concern about complexity in financial reporting. However, she also voiced the conviction that people do understand that there are many root causes of complex financial reporting, including increasingly complex business operations. She also conceded that IFRS and financial reporting in general are a long way from being perfect.

Therefore she urged the members of her audience to a) familiarise themselves with developments in IFRS and how they may affect their company and b) to get involved in the process at an early stage. Because she believed that there was no way back or around IFRSs:

I strongly believe that the momentum is now unstoppable towards every country in the world adopting IFRS, and so the question is no longer ‘if’ but ‘when’ we will have truly global accounting standards.

Please click to download the manuscript of Ms Lynn's speech from the IASB website.