Last week the NSW government closed down the greyhound racing industry. No ifs, buts or maybes – gone. After considering the findings of a damning report into ongoing and apparently entrenched barbaric and cruel practices within the industry, the government concluded it had no choice.
It serves as a salutary lesson of what can happen to an industry that steadfastly refuses to reform itself from within, and stubbornly resists efforts to reform it from without. At the time of writing the government was showing no signs of budging, despite a spirited rearguard action on behalf of those whose livelihoods stand to be destroyed by the actions of a few bad apples.
Bad apples are something the financial planning industry knows plenty about, and so is reform. In light of the greyhound racing industry’s experience, perhaps financial planning should consider itself fortunate that it has “only” been the recent subject – by the reckoning of Financial Planning Association chief executive officer Dante De Gori – of 54 reviews or inquires, which have led to several significant pieces of legislation.
In late June the chief of staff for Assistant Treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer, told the Financial Planning Academics Forum (FPAF) in Melbourne that if the Coalition were to be re-elected it would introduce legislation on professional, education and ethical standards to the parliament this year.
More than a week after Australians went to the polls, the election fog lifted to reveal the return of a Malcolm Turnbull-led Coalition government, albeit by the slimmest of majorities, so we can expect to soon see renewed focus on education, professional and ethical standards.
Death not really an option
Faced with changes that will lay a foundation of a profession (and by doing so begin to address the issue of restoring public trust and confidence in financial planners) or being obliterated, the former is probably preferable.
Many of the industry’s concerns have been accommodated in the latest draft legislation on professional, education and ethical standards, including pushing out the education standards compliance date for existing financial planners to 2024.
(To put that date in perspective, someone who becomes eligible to vote in 2024 would have been born in the same year the second book in the Twilight series or the final Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, was published.)
And while some other issues need to be tweaked – it seems unnecessary, for example, to reinvent work already completed on a financial planning degree course curriculum – the broad thrust of the reforms should be applauded. After all, consider the alternative.
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On Wednesday afternoon, gremlins got into Professional Planner’s newsletter system, and subscribers received an early, test version of the Thursday morning publication, complete with dead links (the articles were all scheduled to publish on Thursday morning).
Apologies to all subscribers for jamming your inbox like that. It doesn’t happen often, but it shouldn’t happen at all. Even so, we cannot in good conscience promise it will never happen again – human error is difficult to eliminate entirely from a process that is essentially manual. But readers may be assured that we remain vigilant to ensure it happens as infrequently as possible.
