Speaking at Momentum Media’s Election 2025 event last week, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor outlined the Coalition’s plans for the financial advice profession if they are successful in the federal election next month.
The shadow treasurer even hit a number of the Financial Advice Association Australia’s (FAAA) five “key asks” for the incoming government outlined earlier in the week.
Following this, the FAAA has welcomed the opposition’s focus on addressing the challenges plaguing the financial advice profession.
“We are encouraged to see a number of the Coalition’s proposed measures align with the FAAA’s five key priorities for the next federal government,” FAAA chief executive Sarah Abood said.
“In particular, the commitment to reforming the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR), giving advisers access to the ATO portal, reducing regulatory burden through DBFO and supporting new entrants to the profession. These are all important steps in addressing the challenges currently facing the sector.”
With current regulatory practices largely considered unnecessarily onerous and costly for both advisers and their clients, Abood said the creation of a financial services deregulation taskforce proposed by the Coalition is “needed and welcome”.
At last week’s event, Taylor also set a target of regrowing the profession to 30,000 financial advisers, which shadow financial services minister Luke Howarth later called a “north star” for future advice reforms.
Although a time frame for reaching this goal has not been set, Abood said the association welcomed the Coalition’s “ambitious target” for the future of the profession.
“A numerical target for rebuilding adviser numbers is a helpful signal of intent, though this must be matched by action that makes the profession more viable and attractive to new entrants,” she said.
“We believe they offer a pragmatic and constructive path forward for the advice profession – and for the Australians who depend on it.”
As one of the biggest concerns for the profession, addressing the CSLR was at the top of the FAAA’s asks for the incoming government. Though, as luck would have it, Howarth said last week that he ultimately wants to scrap the scheme altogether, adding that he “[doesn’t] even believe in the CSLR”.
Regardless of whether or not this actually happens, Abood said: “We continue to advocate for concrete reform to CSLR – specifically, capping the advice levy at $10 million and ending adviser responsibility for product failures – and believe that without such change, rebuilding the industry will remain difficult.”
Another key sticking point has been the long wait for the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms, which, despite Labor having had the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) final document since December 2022, have yet to put all of the reforms into action.
On the other side of government though, earlier this month, Taylor promised to introduce legislation to finalise financial services reforms within 100 days if the Coalition is successful on 3 May.
With all this in mind, Abood pointed out that they are still waiting on the rest of Parliament to address advisers’ concerns.
“We continue to seek clarity from Labor, the minor parties and the independents regarding their positions on these same asks, demonstrating their support for the advice profession and the great work we do helping Australian consumers be better off,” the CEO said.
