Speaking at Momentum Media’s Election 2025 breakfast event in Sydney on 10 April, Financial Services Minister, Stephen Jones said the changes to education pathways will halve the time and cost for prospective advisers to join the profession.
In what is likely the outgoing minister’s final public appearance in front of an advice audience, he said under the reforms, “the cost and time to meet the new standard will be halved for most students who are studying a commerce, economics, or finance degree”.
“It means you don’t have to do two degrees,” Jones said.
“Most kids leaving high school today – and I don’t mean any offence – but they’re not saying to themselves, ‘I want to be a financial adviser’.
“The challenge for us is to say how much of that undergraduate degree can articulate into the essential requirements of professional financial advisers. We think we’ve got the balance right there. We don’t tell people they’ve got to go and study another whole degree; we just pick the topics that they need to complement their undergraduate degree.”
According to the minister, the measures will go some way to addressing the significant decline in the number of advisers since the royal commission and the education requirements that were introduced in its wake.
“We’re committed to ensuring that advisers have the training and qualifications they need to act in their clients’ best interests. However, the implementation of the requirement for financial advisers to hold tertiary education qualifications, frankly, was bungled,” Jones said.
“Long-time advisers who diligently acted in their clients’ best interests were told to go back to university or find a new line of work. Unsurprisingly, advisers started leaving the industry in droves, and this was a genuine crisis point for the industry’s liability.”
Pointing to the Labor government’s action on implementing the experienced adviser pathway relatively early in this term of Parliament, he added that while this has halted “the bleeding”, more needs to be done.
“In some ways, the previous government designed a qualifications process that was perfect in theory, but hopeless in practice. It’s a significant investment for young people changing careers, or anybody changing careers, and young people early in school to decide their career path and the tertiary qualifications,” Jones said.
“The status quo is unsustainable, and without change, the profession will hit another crisis point very, very soon, and that’s simply a factor of the numbers. More people are leaving the industry than people who are entering being approved qualification.”
Taylor aims for 30,000 advisers
Also speaking at the event, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said a Coalition government was also committed to reforming education standards and would make “rebuilding the financial advice industry” a priority.
“This is crucially important. This won’t be just optics or words; this will be driven down into the way we want our regulator and regulation of this industry to work. The numeric target will be embedded in ASIC statement of expectations,” Taylor said.
“ASIC and the other regulators have traditionally seen their statement of expectations, what is expected of them by government, as just focused on managing risk, adding regulation and bureaucracy. But the sector they’re overseeing has to succeed, that has to work for Australians, and has to ensure that Australian investments are stewarded in an appropriate way.”
He added: “We need to make sure we get the sector back to where it needs to be, which we believe is 30,000 advisers.”
Shadow financial services minister Luke Howarth, also speaking on Thursday morning, reiterated this goal, calling it a “north star” for future advice reform, thought he conceded that a time frame on reaching the 30,000 number has not been set.
“Setting the target acknowledges the collapse in adviser numbers due to excessive regulation and red tape,” Howarth said.
“We know that ultimately fewer advisers means advice is becoming less affordable and accessible for Australians that need it most.”
