FPA to review enshrinement if Senate push fails
The Financial Planning Association (FPA) will review linking enshrinement of the term ‘financial planner' to membership of a professional association if the legislation fails to make it through the Senate.
The legislation has passed through the House of Representatives but was not tabled in the Senate last week due to the change in Prime Minister and may not get through the upper house unless Federal Parliament is recalled before this year's election.
FPA chief executive Mark Rantall said the association would support the legislation in its current form and would be relying on a recall of Parliament for it to proceed but in the event that it did not take place it would review the conditions around enshrinement.
Rantall said the FPA had listened to the wider industry and removed the professional association and codes of conduct conditions from its push for enshrinement. However given the recently announced requirement by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for degree qualifications for planners by 2019 it would review those conditions.
"This requirement adds weight to our argument about how the industry can moved as quickly as possible to receiving professional recognition."
Rantall said the review may upset some stakeholders who have been ready to accept enshrinement as it stands but the hiatus in the progression of the legislation was a good time to review what was right for the profession in the long term.
"We are happy to have dialogue with industry to restate our argument and will continue to state that it will be hard for the planning industry to be seen as a profession when practitioners sit outside professional associations. It is difficult for financial planning to be recognised as professionals without membership of such bodies and adherence with codes of conduct and professional standards," Rantall said.
"This type of approach is common in other professions and is not out of step with the evolutionary path from being an industry to a profession."
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