What did the Government do to understand the cost of the CSLR?

The advice profession has every reason to be furious about the handling of the CSLR legislation. My latest article sets out one more reason why that is the case.

The Government is required, when introducing legislation, to undertake an Impact Analysis, in order to understand the consequences of the legislation, including the benefits and costs. In the case of the CSLR, an Impact Analysis was not done. The Government relied upon the Hayne Royal Commission, as being an equivalent exercise, however the Hayne Royal Commission final report was four years before the CSLR legislation was tabled, and three years before Dixon Advisory went into administration.

We nonetheless expected that the Government would have undertaken analysis to understand the likely cost. Despite the obligation to undertaken this analysis and to publish it on the Office of Impact Analysis website, that was not the case.

Even when investigated through the Freedom of Information process, despite extensive delays that took it well beyond the legislated timeframe, we got very little information back. There is no doubt that the Government knew the scale of the Dixon Advisory debacle, however evidently did not do the work to understand the likely cost for the small business financial advice sector. That compounds the problem that we have with this legislation that is both inequitable and unsustainable. The Government needs to fix this. 

Read my latest article here and let me know your thoughts down below.