FASEA bungles restricting advice access

Addressing the AFA Virtual Conference on Thursday, Mr Jones said the thousands of advisers expected to leave the industry in the next few years were the result of government “mishandling” of the transition of financial advice to a profession.

“In the 12 months since I last spoke to you, we’ve seen over 4000 advisers leave the sector after FASEA’s final standards were finally published, we’ve seen more delays due to the mishandling of the process and more advisers are expected to leave the industry in the months ahead,” Mr Jones said.

“It’s a significant concern not only for professional advisers, but Australians at large – there’s never been a time where households and businesses have had a greater need for quality professional advice.”

Mr Jones pointed out the Australian economy was “in the first recession in 30 years and the deepest downturn since the 1930s”, and it was disappointing that in the midst of this the government had “bungled the implementation of reforms that have been a decade in the making”.

“We believe the FASEA process needs to get back on the right track – there needs to be greater consultation with all sections of the industry to ensure the recognition and training arrangements are right,” he said.

“Hardship has been visited on the profession at the very time where we need the profession to be looking outwards and focusing on the needs of households and businesses that are doing it tough, and now more than ever relying upon the advice you are best placed to provide.”

Mr Jones said industry educational and ethical standards should not involve “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” and needed to be implemented in a way that was fairer to existing advisers.

“We’ve got to ensure that we have the professional accreditation and training standards right – we don't want to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so we need to ensure changes in standards, that have been coming a long time, are rolled out in a better way than they have been,” he said.

“There have been obvious shortcomings in things like the test arrangements and flexibility around those arrangements. We think the standards body could have done a better job and in the critical years ahead we want to ensure they are improving their game – what has gone on is not acceptable.”