History
David Tennant, a member of AFCCRA Council between 2000 and 2007, including two terms as Chairperson in 2005 and 2007, touched on the history of the sector, as part of a speech at the 2010 AFCCRA Conference. David wrote that:
There is no single 'big bang moment' when financial counselling began in Australia. Rather there was an evolution of thinking, beginning around the 1960s that something was fundamentally wrong with a welfare provision model primarily focused on providing emergency relief to people experiencing financial difficulty. There had to be way to investigate the root causes of financial exclusion and exploitation and to design sustainable solutions.
Early financial counselling services focused their client interaction more on budgeting and debt repayment*. Over time and recognising the role that unfair markets played in perpetuating disadvantage, workers engaged clients in a different manner; not just as victims, to be given material aid, or as incompetents to be lectured about changing their ways. Financial counsellors sought to work with and for their clients, listening and suggesting rather than telling. In the process a clearer picture emerged of the structural challenges that low income consumers face in accessing products and services on safe and fair terms.
It was not long before the pioneers of this emerging service model started to see common threads in their work. Looking backwards then it should be no surprise that there was an attraction to building networks and sharing experiences to better serve individual clients and to pursue systemic advocacy opportunities.
By 1982, the structure of an organised national financial counselling network was in place. That network grew quickly, at least in prominence if not total number.
Betty Weule, a respected financial counsellor from New South Wales, was there at the formation. Betty recalls that the Financial Counsellors' Association of Australia came into existence in 1984 in Melbourne. Records show that the new body, forerunner to the current AFCCRA, held its first national conference at St George's College Perth, from the 17th to the 21st of February 1985.
At some point, FCAA became AFCCRA. The organisation was successful in attracting government funding to perform its peak body role. That funding was withdrawn in 1996 when the Federal Government changed. That AFCCRA continued to exist was testimony to the work of a dedicated group of volunteers, particularly Jan Pentland. (There is more information about Jan at www.janpentlandfoundation.org )
In 1999, Jan opened her home, bringing together the then members of the AFCCRA Council to decide the future of the organisation. AFCCRA was at a turning point and there was a real danger that it would fold. The group however decided to continue, albeit in a different way to the past, reflecting its diminished resources. It was too important to the future of the profession, and to the clients of financial counsellors, to see the peak body fade away. Jan remained on the executive of AFCCRA until her death, including eight years in total as its Chair.
In the 2008 budget, the Treasurer Wayne Swan announced that funding for the Commonwealth Financial Counselling Program would be doubled, from the then $2.5 million per year (unchanged since the program began in 1990) to $5 million. In early 2009, the Federal Government again provided funding for AFCCRA to allow it to perform its peak body role adequately.
* Australian Financial Counselling & Credit Reform Association, Commonwealth Funded Financial Counselling. A report on the first two years of the Commonwealth Financial Counselling Program, Canberra, June 1992, page 1.