Speaking on a recent webinar hosted by Stockbrokers and Investment Advisers Association (SIAA), shadow minister for financial services doubled down on his earlier commitment to fix the “hot mess” that is the advice industry by introducing an ‘experience pathway’.
“We want to put in place a sensible, efficient recognition of prior learning arrangement so that if you’ve been doing the job for ten years, you can continue to be a licensed adviser provided you haven’t got any black marks,” Mr Jones said.
He assured that if appointed Labor “should be able to” enact the experience pathway “pretty quickly”.
“Sworn in, consultation process, let’s get this done.
“We want to make sure it’s in place and up and running,” Mr Jones said.
Questioned about the possibility of a minority government and whether Labor has engaged with independents particularly on issues concerning advisers, Mr Jones admitted to not having done so.
“No, I haven’t in short. And you shouldn’t be worried about that.
“Firstly, I think it’s going to be easier for Anthony Albanese to get to 76 seats in this Parliament at the end of this election period than it will be for Scott Morrison,” Mr Jones said.
But, acknowledging the possibility that his predictions could be wrong, he explained that in the event Labor had to form a government with the support of crossbenchers, a collation agreement would not be on the table.
“If you support us on legislation by legislation fine, but we’re not going to try and get a formal coalition agreement with you.”
Moreover, Mr Jones explained that “all of the things” Labor is contemplating can be done through the existing ministerial powers and regulatory powers.
“No primary legislation would be needed. I’ll take advice on that, but my initial thinking and analysis is that we don’t need primary legislation.
“It would be a disallowable instrument, but I’ve got to say it’d be a courageous Senate to try to block it,” the shadow minister said.
Earlier this year, joining Momentum Media on an exclusive podcast,Mr Jones criticised the government for “monumentally mishandling” regulatory changes across the financial services industry and vowed to do better if Labor is elected to government.
The shadow minister gave a candid assessment of the financial services industry, labelling the poorly managed “tsunami of regulatory changes” as the main culprit for adviser exodus in Australia.
“There was a whole bunch of changes that were in play, there was a known timeline for it, not going back months or even years. Some of this stuff has been five, six years in the making, how a government could monumentally mishandle a bunch of this stuff is beyond belief, particularly a government that says it’s a good economic manager.
“It is just beyond belief the mess that they’ve created in this sector,” Mr Jones said.
It’s not all about the exams we have to take, it is about all the ambiguity of all the trick questions within the exam.
I’m backing him to get it done in mid 2027, in other words when it is too late. They are all muppets
Looks like the good Senator has her social media attacks dogs on the job….
Five years ago was the time to adjust the meaning of a degree to recognize life experience not in 2022. Something is really wrong with this industry. FASEA was given a simple job of determining the meaning of a Degree. The Government didn’t tell us to get a Financial Planning Degree, FASEA did.. FASEA was a dangerous combination of fools and individuals with questionable morals. Lead astray due to Academics fooled by greater fools being the FPA which gave them/ “gifted them” a definition of a Degree. If we had a strong and merged Financial Planners Association as opposed to a Financial Planning Association this likely would have fixed things FIVE years ago. Advisers need stop relying on others, their licensee’s, and start asking questions of their industry associations and start getting real advocacy.
I’ve now had the misfortune to see Stephen Jones present a few times in the last couple of weeks. He has been underwhelming every time. He’s a ‘she’ll be right, I’ve got this all in hand’ kinda guy, until things aren’t. He thinks every solution is easy, until he has to find one. I thought Jane Hume was underwhelming but this guy is another level of incompetence just waiting to happen. He should keep a low profile until after the election. Better to say nothing and have people think you’re incompetent than to open your mouth and confirm it.
Labor cannot be trusted with our industry. Let’s not forget, Chris Bowen started the decline when they were last in power, and Labor advocated strongly to the point of hysteria for a RC. Whilst they are beholden to their union paymasters and industry funds, you would have to really naive to believe a Labor administration would be your friend.
True, but right now I am jaded and I want revenge. 11,000 financial advisers are GONE. Get your head around that 11,000 men and women have walked away from their careers and businesses. I know some of these people. They weren’t all cowboys. Some were very good, decent people with university degrees and happy clients. Hopefully a Coalition in opposition will listen to our cries for help because they sure as hell didn’t listen when they were in government
Why would advisers want to change course now? Everyone’s taken their medicine on lost revenue and everyone’s known about the education requirements for many years. Watering down the professionalism requirements opens the door to watered down definitions of advisers – industry fund / intra fund advice and robo advice. We’ve taken the pain already – the less advisers in the industry means less competition when clients need us more than ever. This is the doing of both major parties – so suck it up.
Yawwwwwnnnnnnnn.
Is this still being discussed?
If you’re not good enough to have done your study by now, you wont be around long anyway.
The dinosaurs went extinct remember…
If this goes through it will mean we are not a profession. So glad I did all that work. Dumb.
I definitely think that prior experience needs to be factored in, so welcome the proposed changes (if they even happen!). A bit late however for those advisers that have left or are complying with the education requirements, so
understand their bitterness. At the end of the day, an experienced competent adviser with many years under their belt must surely be able to provide better advice than a 24 year old with multiple degrees.
Labor fully supported all Haynes J’s royal commission recommendations. No amendments were seen necessary then but apparently the whole process was poorly handled? Doesn’t that mean Labor was complicit but is now trying to pretend its on side? The fact that the clown Jones said BID isn’t the problem indicates he is electioneering not passionate about real change.
What a piece of work. His party designed the mess and never once objected to the implementation by the Libs, in fact they said they would go harder. Now he has the gall to waltz in and try to take the credit for fixing a mess he and his party are fully complicit in creating.
it was a n brainer in the first place . some one wants to get rid of advisers.
Excellent. I’m a 35 year CFP, tertiary qualified, wanting to continue for another 5-6 years. Going back to Uni again is not an option for an extra 2-3 years of work. Let’s keep our experience in the industry a bit longer to soften the steady stream of advisers leaving.
The thing I find really annoying is people like you have known for about 10 years they have had to do this. You now pretend softening the education requirements is all about helping the industry…..
Don’t you really mean “Lets keep our experience in the industry a bit longer so I can make a bit more money before I retire”
No, it’s saying let’s not think another few Uni subjects is the answer to our industry’s problems. Maybe we can value advisers who have a proven, unblemished record of long term client relationships and who could produce many client testimonials. I’ll take experience and a proven track record over a Uni certificate every time – in any industry.
And can I add many advisers like me have a uni degree, have met all educational requirements for many years, have successfully passed all audits & the FASEA exam. We respect education combined with a real life experience.
Agree… Having known some of the ‘bad eggs’ and in our industry and tried to out them, they were all tertiary qualified and although not who we want in our industry would easily pass the exam and just had to do ethics, which sure they would pass easily too… Education is no guarantee and only one area to address. We need to also look at various ways to attract the best. How better to do this than mentoring with experienced currently qualified ethical advisors…if there are any left after 2026.
CFP? Hang on your association is the group that put forward an adopted proposal saying your experience is worth 20 points out of 100.
Why would you do this when the majority has met the regulation, spent the time, money and hard work to get this done and try to make the industry better, and you reward the lazy minority. This is such a bad policy decision and not in the best interest for the industry nor the consumers.
I dont call myself a lazy minority, I’ve been a Planner for 33 years and worked bloody hard looking after consumers and meeting every single education upgrade, CPD, new Diplomas, Ethics courses and FASEA Exam and now most of a Degree….Its disingenuous to label Advisers lazy and shows a lack of understanding of how this Industry was built.
I have been an adviser for 21 years, advising holistically, met CPD points year on year, done extra training in sectors of our industry which were recognised and now no longer because our industry bodies got involved. Sat the exam and passed first attempted. Never an issue with Audits in my 21 years. Have started my Grad Dip and completed the ethics subject. Don’t fancy redoing subject topics i already am proficient in just till fill the subject quota. My experience and reputation, the IP I bring to the table it certainly worth something!! Don’t recall this meeting the definition of LAZY.
Finally some sense…
Real education improvement I am in total favor of but aside from ethics the 5 subjects I need to do, having done Commerce degree, 20 years experience and 3 years doing DFS I have already done… Just money for Kaplan.
and the other education institutions
That is just wrong, now is not the time for our industry to go backwards. Let’s hope Labor do not have the opportunity to implement this backwardation policy. Bye Mr Jones.
Mr Jones explained that “all of the things” Labor is contemplating can be done through the existing ministerial powers and regulatory powers.
Besides watering down the education requirements, what else is in your “all of the things list”…
Right – all the talk about raising standards, becoming a profession, gaining trust is no longer relevant. If we have better industry bodies like the CAANZ or Law Society perhaps they could have taken control but as long as the AFA and FPA are dominated by product providers (aka big dealer groups), we are condemned like Sisyphus – pretty apt don’t you think 🙂