FASEA consultation process a ‘waste of time’
The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) has made virtually no change to its professional year standard, forcing industry bodies to question whether the entire consultation process was a waste of time.
Associate professor at Deakin Business School, Adrian Raftery, said the latest legislative instrument released by the Authority saw nothing more than a few definitions added, raising concerns for the legislative instruments to follow.
“It doesn’t look like anybody’s opinion has been taken on board,” he said. “I’m concerned that a similar lip service is going to be provided for the subsequent legislative instruments that are no doubt going to be tabled in the coming week.”
Raftery said there had been “significant whispers” in the industry that the Authority had already made up its mind, and were treating the consultation process like a “box-ticking exercise”.
He said he was fearful that industry bodies had simply wasted their time preparing submissions over the last few months.
“We’ve probably all wasted hundreds of hours reading the documentation, getting feedback from members and consolidating and summarising our positions,” he said. “It feels like it’s all been wasted time.”
Raftery said the secretive release of documents on FASEA’s website late on Friday nights was indicative of the avenue they would take, and that they had already made their mind up.
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