Internal auditors have lost their authority within large corporations and must work hard to avoid a repeat of the sort of cultural failings found by the prudential regulator at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
That is the considered view of Elizabeth Johnstone, the chairman of the ASX Corporate Governance Council and former director of the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board from 2005 to 2013.
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, prior to the delivery of a hard-hitting speech to the Institute of Internal Auditors in Melbourne on Tuesday, Ms Johnstone said her own research had uncovered widespread failings in the internal audit function in Australia.
In the lead-up to her speech, she interviewed about 100 people including directors, a number of…
