Dear Alumni,

Greetings from Victoria University’s School of Accounting and Commercial Law Alumni Relations team!

The first trimester is underway and it is great to see the students around campus again! We have had a busy start to the year with our annual Achievements Ceremony, a PhD Colloquium, the CAGTR Seminars on “Should Wellington become a Super City” and “Taxation Issues in charities and not-for-profit organisations” and, of course, teaching.

Thank you for keeping us updated with news of your career successes – keep those emails coming.

Associate Professor Carolyn Cordery
For the SACL Alumni Relations Committee

We recently honoured our top students at the School’s annual Achievements Ceremony in the Memorial Theatre, Student Union Building. Tony Dale, Chief Executive External Reporting Board and an alumnus of the School, congratulated the students on their awards and reflected on the varied careers that a qualification in accounting, commercial law or taxation will lead to. He encouraged students to consider an Honours degree, to extend their thinking skills. The Awards for Excellence were presented by Tony Dale and Course Prizes were presented by their sponsors.

Tony Dale, Chief Executive, XRB with Zoe Brandon, Excellence Award Winner

The Awards for Excellence are presented to the best academic performers in their second and third years of study in Accounting, Commercial Law and Taxation courses. The full list of Award winners is here.

Lizzy Goggin receiving her certificate from Professor Ian Eggleton

In addition to Undergraduate awards, the RW Steele Scholarship for postgraduate study in Accounting was presented to Carolyn Palmer. This scholarship was established in 1994 by colleagues and friends of Mr R W Steele to mark his contribution to the accounting profession. He was President of the (then) NZ Society of Accountants for 1970-71, a partner of WH&RJ Nankervis and, later in life, a Director of a number of firms including Cable-Price Downer and James Cook Hotel.

Carolyn is making a focused assessment of the extent to which tax policy responses to natural disasters differ between countries, dependent on the closeness of each country’s tax policy to an optimal framework. Her research utilises qualitative methods to investigate reasons for the evolution of the different tax policy responses in Australia and New Zealand, following recent natural disasters. Further commentary is made on tax policy changes in Japan and the United States. Carolyn’s supervisors are Professor Normal Gemmel and Associate Professor Lisa Marriott.

Over the Summer of 2014/15 we again hosted and supervised a number of Summer Scholars in the School and within Industry. The students and their projects are listed below. Staff and students enjoyed learning more about particular topics and increased skills obtained.

• Harry Burgess “The Third Sector in 2045: a supporting literature review” (supervisors Associate Professors Carolyn Cordery and Karen Smith)
• Jimmy van Dissen “Did the occupational and social networks of early Nelson “accountants” matter?” (supervisor Associate Professor Carolyn Fowler)
• Yen Le “Why have New Zealand rents and house prices diverged?” (supervisor Professor Norman Gemmell)
• Loc Nguyen “An inquiry into the impacts of agglomeration, development contributions, land taxation on the rate and density of new development in Auckland” (supervisor Professor Norman Gemmell)
• Arthur Elliott-Jones, Mandy Enright and Dylan Hobbs – projects with Inland Revenue (Supervisor Associate Professor Lisa Marriott)
• Richard Stringer “Law and low wage workers” (supervisor Dr Amanda Reilly)

All of the students were encouraged to enter the Summer Gold Poster competition. Harry Berger’s Poster can be accessed here.