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Shadow financial services minister Luke Howarth has said accountants are “trusted individuals” and he is open to them providing financial advice in some form.
Appearing on The ifa Show, Howarth supported calls for accountants to be able to provide some form of financial advice to help fill the gap in advice accessibility.
Following Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones’ December announcement of greater detail on how the new class of advisers (NCA) would operate under the government’s proposed reforms, the SMSF Association argued the role accountants could play was still being overlooked.
SMSFA chief executive Peter Burgess said at the time there is no argument reforms are needed to reduce the cost of advice and to open up new channels of professional advice, however it remains a mystery as to why accountants aren’t being considered.
“It was our contention that the Quality of Advice Review neglected the significant role accountants can play in addressing the growing advice gap, and the government is perpetuating this oversight,” Burgess said.
“By giving accountants a defined advice role, it will further support consumers to access the advice they need when they want it from their choice of trusted adviser.”
Speaking with ifa, Howarth said the SMSFA is “on the right track there”.
“At the end of the day, I respect accountants significantly,” he said.
“My experience with accountants is they’ve provided good advice. They’re often people that you go to if you want to look at setting up a self-managed super fund and they’re qualified people that know tax law inside out.
“So, giving a little bit of advice, I don’t fear that at all from accountants and I think it probably should be looked at.”
While the accountants’ exemption previously allowed accountants to provide certain types of limited financial advice, this was removed in 2016 and replaced with the limited Australian Financial Services Licence regime, though there are only a small number of accountants operating under the regime.
Howarth added that the Labor government’s approach to regulating accountants, in general, has been “absolutely atrocious”, specifically pointing to the process of changing the tax practitioners’ code of conduct.
“They were about to get it disallowed in the Senate and at the last minute they scrambled to make changes,” he said.
“But this should never have happened in the first place. This was lazy policy done from someone who doesn’t understand or hasn’t run a small business or hasn’t had a career outside politics or unions that really has no idea what accountants do.
“And the vast majority of accountants are trusted individuals that give good advice and I back them every day of the week. I think they’ve really had been treated poorly by Albanese and his minister.”
The shadow minister added that there needs to be more collaboration between the professions.
“Financial advisers shouldn’t fear accountants. Accountants are good people, they’re well qualified and we actually want to try to get more people into financial advice as well,” Howarth said.
“There’s plenty of work for them at the moment. We want to reduce their regulations so let’s work together.”
To hear more from Luke Howarth, tune in here.
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Comments (41)
We’ve seen the FAAA push for bringing in Indian advisers, Howarth advocating for accountants, and Industry Super—through their agent Minister Jones—championing a "new class of adviser" with lower education standards and subsidies (trail commission) disguised as collective fees. Meanwhile, no one seems willing to address the suffocating approved degree requirements or the prohibitively expensive professional year, both of which are driving prospective advisers away from the profession.
What’s even more concerning is that the "advice gap" itself is wildly exaggerated, often for nefarious and self-interested reasons. Industry bodies, politicians, and large financial institutions have a vested interest in promoting this narrative to push their agendas—whether it’s deregulating advice, creating new roles with lower standards, or funneling clients into their preferred channels. The reality is that the gap is less about accessibility and more about these stakeholders manipulating the system to serve their own ends.
If these politicians and industry bodies were serious about fixing the advice gap, the solution is simple: revise the degree requirements and make the professional year viable for small businesses. With those changes, the profession could be back on a growth trajectory within two years.
And if the goal is to enable call centres to provide basic customer support, why not just fix the general advice laws? It’s an obvious fix that doesn’t require dismantling professional standards.
Instead, we get politicians like Howarth pushing an accountants' agenda while failing to address the core issues. It’s yet another example of a clueless and likely captured politician claiming to "save" an industry they don’t understand.
I can vouch, having seen what the government did to ALL licensees, especially limited - we paid the same amount of fees as you-all - then I won't be going back there in any hurry. The government blew it.
PS All professions have rogues. And it is up to the REAL professionals to weed them out.
Meanwhile the pie is all yours!
Melissa Caddick was trusted but not trustworthy. Bernie Maddoff was trusted but not trustworthy. Finfluencers on social media are trusted but not trustworthy.
When it comes to financial advice most accountants are trusted but not trustworthy. They have a massive conflict of interest to recommend SMSFs that generate inhouse admin fees. But these SMSFs are rarely in the best interests of clients.
Financial Advisers & are looking at getting elected Luke Howarth, you haven’t got off to a good start with this one.
Nearly all advice I see coming from accountants is to open a SMSF - and then they say go and see a financial adviser about investments.
As an aside, as a licensed financial adviser, can i start advising on mortgages as well? After all, I am a trusted individual and that seems to be all it takes to "give good advice".
If I had my druthers, I would never want an accountant to be advising on life risk without appropriate qualifications. My experience over a long period of time is that accountants tend to sell life risk on price, consider life insurance a commodity that doesn't need advice per se, and they don't look to the future as to the welfare of the beneficiaries of a breadwinner.
And of course it has to have a tax deduction, which means things like IP in the super environment, a total disaster for someone who is a contractor and is disabled between contracts.
The real issue with accountants selling life risk products is they don't do it themselves, because it's handed to someone in the back office as part of their remuneration package.On the assumption that these accountants providing the advice suggested by Mr Howarth, one wonders how they would handle the communication requirements of Standard 5, when they recommend the replacement of ian expensive legacy IP contract.