Spot talk by AFSA Chief Executive Tim Beresford at the 2025 Financial Counselling Australia Conference, Thursday 29 May.
We live in a complex, dynamic and uncertain world.
We have geopolitical disorder, zones of disorder – the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, the South China Sea.
We have AI – artificial intelligence – proliferating and expanding as we speak. An opportunity and a challenge.
And we have climate change, which is real and very present.
How do we make sense of all this – this uncertainty, this complexity, this dynamic world we live in?
I’m reminded of a speech General David Morrison gave to his troops in the Australian Army back in 2013.
He was talking to his troops and this speech went viral.
The key quote from David Morrison was: “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.”
Morrison’s quote got me thinking about our ecosystem, an ecosystem where people live with distress, live with financial vulnerability.
All of us play a role in helping people navigate that financial distress, that financial vulnerability, which ultimately could lead to people taking down the personal insolvency path, the off ramp if you like, as they look to find a fresh start.
As the regulator of the personal insolvency system, we’re a bit like the referee.
Our job is to ensure the match is played firmly and fairly, achieving sensible, achievable and tangible results.
Playing the personal insolvency match are a number of players:
- debtors looking to get a fresh start,
- creditors looking to get paid something of what they’re owed,
- registered trustees providing advice, guidance, sometimes direction, to both creditors and debtors to achieve their respective outcomes.
And as financial counsellors, you are very important support staff. You each play a vital role in ensuring the match is played fairly and firmly.
As a regulator, as the referee, overseeing the match, we have a number of regulatory tools that we deploy to ensure the match is played firmly and fairly.
We provide education and outreach, webinars on key rules in the match.
We actively ensure all players comply with the laws – debtors, creditors, the registered trustees.
And we enforce the law. If you like, sometimes we need to pull out the red card.
In making sense of the match, we often gather intelligence to understand different perspectives, different lenses, different vantage points about how the match is being played.
And that intelligence comes to us from multiple parties – fellow regulators, our own analytics and intelligence, and really interested spectators who are watching the match.
And this is where we need your help, your intelligence.
You see things that we may not see. And guess what, the ref doesn’t see it all.
You’re on the ground, you’re at the match and you are a very vital part of ensuring the match is played firmly and fairly.
If you see something, whatever it may be, if you see something that’s potentially a harm, or a behaviour that’s inappropriate, say something.
My commitment to you as the referee is that I will act on that intelligence, and I will ensure that intelligence is incorporated into the toolkit I use to ensure the match is played firmly and fairly.
So, in closing, in making sense of all of it, in this uncertain, complex world we live in, remember David Morrison’s quote – the standard we walk past is the standard we accept.
We all have an opportunity – we all have a responsibility – to ensure the match is played to the right standard.
If you see something, say something.
