The advisors, who make recommendations to some of the country's biggest and most powerful shareholders, say they are focusing their attention this year on soft short-term bonus targets, which they say reward executives for things as benign as "culture" and "sustainability".

They are also targeting the quality and independence of directors, including their behaviour as directors on other company boards.

Dean Paatsch, a director of proxy advisor group Ownership Matters, says executive salaries and bonus structures remained a key concern in 2016.

It follows a report released in August by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors that revealed more than nine out of 10 chief executives of Australia's top 100 listed companies took home a bonus last year – the highest proportion since the global financial crisis.

"When the stats tell you that the typical CEO gets 76 per cent of their bonus, all of the time, it tells you there's rarely a distribution," Mr Paatsch says.

"Are bonuses genuinely at risk or are they base pay in drag?"

Institutional Shareholder Services, a global proxy advisory firm, says it is concerned by governance issues at Australia's big four banks, including trends in executive pay.

It follows criticism of Commonwealth Bank chief Ian Narev's pay package, which swelled to $12.3 million after he received multimillion-dollar share bonuses for the bank's performance in previous years.

ISS says it is also concerned about board independence. It will this week recommend against the re-election of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank chairman Robert Johanson, due to his tenure on the board for 28 years. An additional term would mean Mr Johanson spending a total of 31 years as a director of the same company, a plight which was "highly uncommon in the Australian market", even for company founders.

Directors and shareholders have already butted heads over excessive executive salaries and bonuses, with CSL copping a "first strike" vote over its remuneration report earlier this month.

The shareholder revolt follows a similar rejection by investors in energy giant AGL at its recent annual general meeting, where 37 per cent voted against its remuneration report.

Proxy advisors, who represent the votes of large superannuation funds and global fund managers, are once again in the crosshairs, with Mortgage Choice chairman Peter Ritchie lashing out at them in a speech last week.

Mortgage Choice narrowly avoided a board spill last year after incurring a second strike when more than a quarter of shareholder votes went against the company's executive pay for a second successive year.

The parting chairman criticised proxy groups for recommending a vote against the company's remuneration package, labelling them "remote and close-minded advisors" and saying they were hurting Australia by issuing "thoughtless recommendations".

It's not the first time proxy groups, who wield more power than ever as the voice of large international investors, have been attacked by directors.

Veteran retailer Gerry Harvey has described them as a "sore on corporate Australia", saying they are more focused on ticking boxes than making shareholders money.

And James Packer has described as "farcical" a two strikes rule that prevents him from using his 50 per cent stake in Crown to vote on executive salaries, but allows him to use it to re-instate the board if a spill motion was ever triggered – by the very institutional investors proxy advisors represent.

Mr Paatsch says attacks on proxy advisers such as Mr Ritchie's are misguided because shareholders ultimately vote out of their own self-interest.

He also disputed Mr Ritchie's claim that there were no miners on the board of BHP or retailers on the board of Woolworths – which was not the case.

"That doesn't stop those people making poor decisions, and both BHP and Woolworths have made bad decisions," he says.

"When 80 per cent of your voting shareholders say 'Hey, we want change', there's a message there.

"You don't blame the messenger, you try and understand the message."

The Australian Shareholders' Association, a proxy advisory firm for mum and dad investors, says it is also targeting soft bonus targets and independence at this year's AGMs.

Of those directors that the group believes are "over-boarded" or tarnished by experience on other boards, one is Super Retail's John Skippen, who is also a non-executive chairman of Slater & Gordon, which posted an almost billion dollar loss this year as a result of massive write-downs.

ASA chairman Allan Goldin says the line has blurred between what a board believed was deserving of a bonus and what was simply part of the job of running a company. "When you start talking about culture and sustainability, aren't you talking about what you get a salary for?" he says.

Mr Goldin says the group is also targeting companies such as AGL that use "underlying" profit figures to avoid not paying out bonuses.

"It's often really hard to know – is this a real number or not?" he says.

Despite the attacks, Paatsch says directors are on the whole becoming more willing to meet with shareholders and their proxies outside of the AGM period.

This was often an exercise in limiting the "blow-out" of AGMs by directors, but was welcome.

"There's a feeling of more scrutiny by shareholders. It's off a low base, but it's good," he says.