Scholarly empirical analyses provide guidance to policy makers in Australia’s ascent from the viral abyss to entrepreneurial sunlit uplands on which post-COVID prosperity might be built. These analyses provide regulatory options which can substantially diminish or lengthen the damage inflicted by the present crisis. They are policy choices only exercisable by the federal government.

Australia is replete with commissions and inquiries into egregious behaviour in its financial sector. This author has quantified the effects of those behaviours on individuals and the wider economy.1 These investigations include Heydon2 (elimination of unhealthy culture), Hayne3 (confluence of law and morality) and the Productivity Commission4 (trust).

Future boards of the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) will have no choice but to come to grips with the legal uncertainty inherent in the FASEA code of ethics, according to academic, Dr David Millhouse.

ABSTRACT Best interest is a commonly used and misunderstood phrase interpreted differently in the law, media, legislature and throughout the investment chain, sometimes glibly. For investors, best interest has been confused with oft-misguided concepts of undivided loyalty to their economic interests. These differing interpretations influence every financial advice relationship, including process.