Too many changes, not enough advisers: FAAA

Despite industry associations’ generally mixed feelings about the 2026-27 Budget, Financial Advice Association Australia chief executive Sarah Abood said that one thing is certain: Australians will need financial advice to navigate the proposed changes.  

Speaking today at a Senate Economics Legislation Committee hearing, Abood said that the FAAA is “concerned that unadvised Australians will be more vulnerable to scams, fraud and unlicensed finfluencers as they seek to navigate these very wide-ranging tax reforms.” 

X

Continue to Website

Of particular concern was the differential tax treatment applied to property investments held in and outside of superannuation, which the FAAA discussed in a recent submission. Abood said that “because the tax situation hasn’t changed in super … it’s now much more tax-effective to hold an established residential property in your SMSF than in your personal name.”  

She continued: “We are concerned [about this] because there has been misconduct in that area, with consumers being pulled into these schemes by property spruikers: people who aren’t licensed and who may not have the best interests of that consumer at heart. These schemes can be very high risk.” 

Of course, since the number of practicing advisers has nearly halved since 2019, Abood said that the kind of professional guidance needed to avoid these scams is in very short supply.  

“Existing financial advisers will need to re-advise most of their existing clients, and that will give them less capacity to advise more consumers,” Abood said.  

“We’re in a situation now where I think we have something like 700 Australians retiring a day, so the demand for advice is much higher than our capacity to pay to supply it at the moment.”