Professor Tom Collins:

I had not actually thought about the question of engaging with predecessors because, in one sense, the board members who have probably been most impactful from my point of view are the two section 18 appointees who have occupied that position, as the Senator will know, for the past 12 months. I have had several meetings with them and have been absolutely thoroughly briefed by both of them. My sense of it is that both of them continue to have a formal relationship with the organisation so we have a formal basis for that interaction, which in the past I would not have had if appointed to the role of chair.

In other words, I would have been inclined not to seek any briefing from the former members, partly because at that point it is hearsay. It is informal. When the informal becomes formal, formalising informalities can be tricky, especially in the context of an organisation that is in the midst of the kind of storms that IFI is in. I do not have a principled problem with doing it. I have not felt the necessity to do it up to now, largely because I have had the insights and knowledge that have been garnered by the two section 18 appointees. That has sustained me. There are, of course, the reports-----