Speaking on the latest episode of the ifa Show, Pride Advice’s Brett Schatto specifically referenced standard 12 of the ethics that states that “individually and in cooperation with peers, you must uphold and promote the ethical standards of the profession and hold each other accountable for the protection of the public interest”.
“…I’m not sure what other code has a standard 12 in it, where effectively we’re supposed to dob each other in,” Mr Schatto said.
“I find it confusing and you either assume that you’re a dumb person or that you actually get it but you don’t get the legislation.
“I just don’t think it’s working like a well-oiled machine. I think we’ve got too many moving parts. FASEA was supposed to be the overarching body but to some extent FASEA goes above the Corporations Act in terms of what you are required to do as a professional person.
“The ethics course that I had to do, like everybody else, suggests that we all have different morals and ethics and not necessarily one right and the rest bad.
“So how do you actually determine whether someone has done the right or wrong thing based on their ethics?”
Listen to the full podcast here.
Mr Schatto’s comments come after Labor senator Katy Gallagher slammed the government’s establishment of FASEA as an “abject failure”.
“Labor has always been supportive of reforms and initiatives that support a professional consumer focused financial advice and services industry, but FASEA stands out as an abject failure in public policy and in administration,” Senator Gallagher said earlier this month in Parliament.
“They went through three CEOs in their first 18 months. They failed to produce standards that were in any way timely or done in an adequate fashion. Advisers were subjected to changes and complications to the exam process.”
The only thing that FASEA have succeeded in is showing evwryine how unethical they are.
The FASEA exam is unfair and questions are framed to trick the candidate. The exam should have 50% assignment at least just like University assessments and 50% exam. Pass make should be 50%. FASEA exam should be conducted by a…. “FASEA stands out as an abject failure in public policy and in administration,” Senator Gallagher said earlier this month in Parliament.”
Advisers and compliance teams are still debating what some standards really mean in their application. We need greater clarity.
I can only half agree with Katy Gallagher about FASEA. The policy and legislative intent of FASEA was actually good. It’s the implementation of it that was an abject failure.
When you entrust regulatory power to a small group of unelected, unaccountable people, there needs to be a mechanism for government intervention if those people turn out to be incompetent, biased, or corrupt. Such intervention is also urgently needed at ASIC.