Over a dozen former state and national leaders of the CPA have declared war on the accounting body’s current leadership.

Sixteen former top figures have signed a letter demanding the remaining board immediately describe a recent decision to withhold a list of member email addresses.

They describe the move as “tantamount to deliberate obstruction”.

The group, including former CPA national presidents Elizabeth Alexander, Graeme McGregor, Brian Waldron, Charles Griss and David Boymal, have spoken against a new review panel looking at the CPA’s management.

They say they cannot support it because the five remaining long-term directors have an “unacceptable conflict of interest” in the outcome, according to Fairfax.

CPA members have seen seven directors resign in the last few weeks, watched CEO Alex Malley sacked with a $4.9 million payout, and heard that CPA public practice members will lose their legal shield from multimillion-dollar lawsuits from October due to a conflict of interest.

The letter to CPA chairman Jim Dickson says the 16 past leaders are “strongly opposed to the board's policies on: remuneration, CEO personal self-promotion, marketing strategies, the initiation of CPA Advice with its consequential ramifications for CPA public practice members, the lack of transparency and flawed processes for election of board members. We also have deep concerns about conflicts of interest of board and management”.

It explicitly demands that the current board either call an extraordinary meeting by the end of July or release the email addresses of the CPA’s near 158,000 members so someone else can call an emergency meeting.