Sarah Harding, former financial advisor, on the politics of money

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:00)

Sarah Harding, welcome to the Motivate Collective podcast. This is so exciting. We have known each other a long time and reconnected recently. How should we explain what you do and what your background is for those who don't know?

Sarah Harding (00:13) 

Well, yeah, I guess where do I start with my background? Like anyone who, I guess, is mid-career, I could talk about many different things that I've done in my life and my background. I guess for me, where I'm at, so my background is very much in financial services. I went to university in Brisbane, of all places, and did an undergrad in business, majoring in finance, because I really wanted to work for a bank.

And so got into a bank and then realised I wanted to be a financial advisor. Back then, this was when there was a lot of pressure on financial advisors to upskill and do further training. And so I ended up doing a Masters of Applied Finance as well. So I did all these other qualifications that I needed to do basically to provide advice and, yeah, spent six years as a financial advisor working with clients. I ended up having my running my own business, which was very interesting. So I worked with a diverse, I guess, set of clients everywhere from like younger professionals, you know, trying to get started, trying to buy their first house, all the way up through to, I guess, you know, wealthy families who are looking for, you know, investment strategies for their portfolios and yeah, we're obviously at a later stage in life. So, I got quite a bit of experience in that space. But, you know, I guess the space a few years ago went through a lot of challenges. You know, we went through the Royal Commission for Financial Advisors, which, if anyone was working in the industry at the time, was really crap you know. You turn on the media, or you go to the media, and you know, be all over the media that every single financial advisor is really dodgy and really bad. And, you know, everyone's ripping everyone off. And it was just a really hard time because obviously, you know, people focus on and read the media a lot. you know, people were then a lot, you know, if you hadn't seen an advisor before, people are a lot more hesitant to, you know, to come on board and to seek advice. So that was really challenging, and it definitely made me restructure my business. I ended up changing licences as well through that time, but started with a new so financial advising is a very heavily compliance and regulated industry. So, licensing is basically somebody who holds the financial services license that as an advisor, you need to basically be authorised under. So I went from, at the time, the largest licensee in Australia to an independent licensee that was a lot more boutique and a lot more focused on the investment space. So they're actually called the Investment Collective. So I really enjoyed, I guess, the investment side of, you know, helping clients with their portfolios and was just very active and interested in that space.

But then COVID hits. I literally, I was looking at purchasing a business or a book of clients from a retiring advisor just before COVID. And through that period, that transaction basically fell over. So I spent six months doing due diligence. I got advice on, you know, meeting with banks, borrowing money, like you name it. I was basically down to like negotiating that final stage. COVID hit, and the person I was acquiring the book of clients from decided to sell it to an accounting practice. So it was a really tough time for me during that period. And so I was like, no, I'll keep going. I'll stick this out. It was really challenging through COVID because I don't know what your situation was, but I was in sharing office space with an accountant here in Mossman. And so I was continuing to go from working in the office back to working from home. And I think I did that numerous times, as everyone did, to kind of like tackle or deal with the lockdowns that we were facing. But it wasn't until, I guess, the end of COVID that it became apparent that the licensing fee was just about to go up. And so it was it was still very tricky, you know, trying to get clients on board, as you can imagine, you know, gone through the Royal Commission. So trust is a lot lower in the space and just gone through…

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:57)

Is it what someone would own in a year? What sort of is this big, big numbers? What's the fee like?

Sarah Harding (05:03)

I was just I was a single plan of practice. So if you're in a larger licensee, where obviously the cost of the stuff is shared, and you've got resources, then I don't think those people impacted as much. But for someone who is a sole practitioner, the licensee fee, like if you think about running a business, right, you need to charge a client and for the money you charge the client, you not only have to pay for the running of your business, but you have to pay, you know, quite a substantial fee to somebody else to be able to use their license to just be able to provide the advice. So yeah, that basically, like it makes it very challenging to then obviously create a profit in a business if you've got like, it's becoming harder to get clients on board. You need obviously the right types of clients because otherwise it won't be profitable for yourself.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:57)

So basically, it got to the point where it was very expensive for you to even have the business existing. And that cost was being passed on to the prices for your clients.

Sarah Harding (06:09)

Woo.

Yeah, and as you can imagine, like, I also went through the Royal Commission, which went through a period where, like, I started my business by acquiring, you know, an existing client base; the majority of that was sold after, I guess, after the Royal Commission. And so I was starting with the new licensee basically from scratch. So, you know, trying to generate new business, get clients on board service, you know, existing clients, it was quite tough. And so as you can imagine, like as soon as the costs of things within your business start to go up, you definitely start to question whether, you know, this is something that is going to be sustainable longer term. And as you can imagine, like through this period of time as well, we're kind of coming out of a, at a federal level, we're coming out of you know, liberal government, and we're very much kind of entering that next phase of like a Labour government.

And as we know, especially at the moment, Labour governments just definitely are not, I guess, supportive of small business. And so I guess as well, that kind of prompted me to rethink, you know, is it really the right time to be, you know, in a startup that's, you know, where the costs are going up, it's getting harder and harder to generate new business because of, you know, bad people that did bad things many years ago and should now be the time that I rethink what I'm doing in my career. That very much prompted me to rethink, yeah, what am I doing? What's next for me? Like for anyone who has started a business, sometimes you put so much effort and energy into it, you don't have a backup plan. So for me, that was very much like, What am I gonna do?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:48)

You wondered what you were going to do? And for those who are listening from another country, we need to remind everybody, Sarah, you are in Australia, where liberal means we had a very conservative government that does, at least in theory and historically, prioritise small business. And then we shifted to a government led by people who focus on what unions perhaps?

Sarah Harding (08:27)

That's correct. Yeah. And so, you know, as we know, the Royal Commission was very much prompted from the Greens. So they were the ones who, I guess, put a lot of pressure on the government to basically go down this pathway. So the Royal Commission was very much, again, something that was pushed from a left-wing party that, as we know, is definitely not supportive of small business or anyone making any kind of money. So yeah, that really kind of, I guess, started it all. Then we had kind of like, you know, COVID, you know, I feel really bad for the people in Melbourne who just, you know, had lost everything because the government was so, so, you know, communist down there that everything was just shut down overnight. And so, you know, like that, if you're in a small business during that period, that would have been significantly tough for you. And, you know, as we know, I think we know, Victoria had one of the strongest lockdowns globally. Again, that was just, you know, we were all suffering from that. And as now we know, we were going into a, you know, a Labour government, which, you know, if you have a look around, what are the businesses that are doing well at the moment? They have scale, you know, they're the big end of town. Most of the small businesses in my area are struggling; they're shutting down. There's not a lot of focus on that kind of entrepreneurial space. And there's a lot more rhetoric around just being kind of anti-business out there. whether that's because we are in the midst of a labor backed by a Greens government, it feels very different out there. I don't know what it feels to you, but living through a liberal government, people are more wanting to create wealth, wanting to succeed, wanting to fund their own retirements, wanting to just have the means to fund themselves. Whereas now it's very much like the narrative out there is like tax the rich and the gas companies need to pay for everything, and the government should be funding everything. It's icky to me. It's kind of like it's very much, and that's why we've got such huge productivity issues in this country, is the fact that, you know, nobody wants to invest in a country that's anti-business. Do you want to invest in a country that has high taxes and doesn't support you?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:56)

Well, that's the thing. Let's explore this for a second, because what we're seeing is that the so-called conservatives or people who might be categorised as conservative are actually supporting the ordinary or mainstream people to simply find independent ways to be self-sufficient. And that's really interesting to me because the idea of being self-sufficient brings to mind for me people like Gandhi or the hippies who want to grow a garden, and that stuff is important. But being self-sufficient has ended up actually bundled in with the conservatives. And then if you're on the other end of the political spectrum, it's assumed you're going to just want to depend on someone else for an employed job where you could get fired at any moment, and your earning potential is capped at that salary. So people need to really ask, and it's great that we can explore that, as you have been a financial advisor. We need to really ask, hang on, is that really helping everyday people?

Sarah Harding (12:08)

Exactly. And if you have a look, I guess, over the last, let's say, five years, right, what has really fundamentally changed in this country? The cost to provide advice and seek advice to make smart decisions has actually gone through the roof in most cases. So people are now paying more. So that's excluded a lot more people from being able to access advice. As we know, we don't have an economy where people learn about finances and money at school. Everybody knows that this exists, but for some reason, the teachers seem to think that, you know, the national agenda is too crowded and all kids don't need that. You know, that really isn't great, I don't think. And it won't be great longer-term if we just leave it like that, especially the way the economy is going at the moment. And then taxes. So I'm sorry, but like, I don't care if you vote Labour, Liberal, Independent, whatever, what's been the outcome? Higher taxes, we've taxed the rich. So, superannuation is now getting taxed more for a certain group of people who have been successful in their lives. Like that to me is just icky. The government's now doing a Senate inquiry into capital gains tax to have a look at, know, trying to alter these taxes, because apparently we're all tax dodgers for wanting to fund our own life.

And so what they may look at doing off the back of this, and again, this was the Greens who did this. Thank you, Greens. But please go back to school, get some financial education, and I think we'll all be in a better

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:43)

Do you think they are really taxing the rich or taxing these smaller business owners who are trying to reach independence for the first time? Because I'm going to take wild guess. Everyone.

Sarah Harding (13:55)

Taxing everyone. If the narrative tax the rich, but tax everyone. From my experience as a financial advisor, what I was going to say about capital gains tax right is what they will most likely do is alter the capital gains discount for residential investment properties and justify it based on inequality, and you know, people are sick of speculative property investment, and basically, you know,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:06)

Yeah.

Sarah Harding (14:22)

People, therefore, shouldn't have the capital gains tax discount that they've got today. That will then, you know, stop them from buying all these investment properties and pricing out first home owners. Now they probably won't reduce it to nothing because that's just crazy. Nobody would sell anything ever again. But, you know, they may look to kind of wind back that discount, which will then start to make residential investment properties in the future less attractive. Now, I'm sorry, but the only people I know who purchase a pool of residential investment properties to survive on in retirement are Labour voters. So you've got the Labour Party being held by the Greens to do something to try and tackle inequality, but all it's going to do is penalise their own voting base. This is how silly the government is, and this is how dumb we have allowed our society to become because there is a bunch of people out there that think, you know, tweaking property investment capital gains tax, you know, discounts is going to shift and alter the ability for people to be able to buy a home. As we know, that's not necessarily going to be the case, you know, like it just means that people might not sell their investment properties for longer because they don't want to pay tax. Honestly, like exactly.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:40)

So they'll hold on to it. Is this because a lot of the investment properties are owned by maybe the mum and pop, as it's called?

Sarah Harding (15:51)

Exactly. That's what I'm trying to say. It's not necessarily the sophisticated investor that has a lot of money that acquires a big portfolio of residential investment properties. It's often the mum and dad who are like sitting there at home. They might have good incomes. They might be teachers or nurses, or they've got stable income, stable employment, but they really want to set themselves up for retirement. They don't want to be relying on the government, and they do want to create financial success themselves.

These are the people who are now going to find it harder to be able to fund their own retirement because the government's going to whack them with more tax now. And they're basically going to say, well, sorry, guys, like, you know, we've got a housing problem, and inequality is getting worse, and we've got to do it and all this stuff they come out with. But again, like I say, the only thing, the only changes that I see or have seen since the Labor government have been elected have been bad for just about…

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:51)

The tax is if someone sells an investment property.

Sarah Harding (16:55)

That's correct. Yeah. You know, obviously today, if you own an investment property, get 50 % of the gain will be tax free and then 50 % will obviously be taxed at your marginal tax rate or however it's, you know, owned with the structure it's owned within. But yeah, so they're looking at basically blaming, you know, some tax concessions that we've given to investors previously and saying that people aren't using this appropriately and that's what's causing the housing crisis, and that's what's causing inequality. But the only people that are really going to be penalised are their own voting base. So, yeah, I just think, I don't see that if they do make any changes, it will be because they have to. Know, governments, they can't do anything because, as you can imagine, if Labour did nothing about this issue, then the Greens at the next election would basically say, you don't care about inequality, you don't care about the housing crisis.

And they would use that to then try and win seats in places that, you know, where people just don't understand anything. So as you can imagine, Labour will most likely be forced to have to do something. And so do I think the changes that they will be forced to do will make any kind of impact on things? Probably not. I think really it's a distraction so that people don't realise that, you know, we need to be creating supply, and that supply needs to be in the appropriate areas. And, again, this is something that the government is definitely not getting right at the moment. We're seeing, you know, building, especially here in Sydney, I'm in Sydney, Australia. So we are just seeing so much development and building at the top end of town, where, you know, it is definitely not affordable housing. And so, yeah, I don't see how building exponential, you know, luxury apartments at $10 million a piece is really going to help the average Australian get into their first home.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:52)

Completely agree. And the thing that I was keen to highlight about that trend, I'm so glad you mentioned that it's the regular Aussies or the mum and dad, mum and pop that are buying these properties. Because, from my understanding, Australia has had a cultural history of preferring to buy homes, houses over here.

At least our generation grew up with the house and the backyard and the front yard and basically the block of land. And Australians, for a good few decades, have understood and felt comfortable with buying a house more than setting up a business. So although they are going to have more potential in creating a business, they feel less familiar with that, and they're going to have more of a learning curve.

So if all they have right now in their mental toolkit potentially is owning a house, and they might already have one, you're saying it sounds like you're saying they could end up losing more money if they wanted to sell the property they do have. And now the better option will be from my understanding, build a business. But then there are all these hurdles with that option as well. Is that on track?

Sarah Harding (20:19)

Well, this is the thing. So like, so I'll say this. So usually, if you have a look at history, if the government does make any changes with capital gains tax, if you, you know, own an existing residential property today, it will most likely be that those properties will be grandfathered. And so the new tax rate or the new tax regime may likely then be for future investment properties. So that's a bit of a caveat in terms of, again, so as you can imagine, from that kind of system, that then might mean also if that is what occurs, that people then just choose not to sell those investment properties because they don't want to realise the tax. So I don't see how people holding on to their investment properties for longer is going to change the housing crisis that we've got today. So again, like, you know, this is how silly these kinds of metrics are for trying to solve a problem using the tax system, really. Kind of think it, know, it assumes that people, again, so using the tax system to kind of create or to solve the housing crisis assumes that everyone has equal access to financial advice. It assumes people have been well-educated in wealth and finances through school and through our system, which as we know, like I said, they have not. And it means that people make rational, smart decisions throughout their life. So again, that may or may not happen. So to assume then that, like altering this tax slightly, is going to have any impact, I guess, on the housing crisis, I just can't see the justification for that whatsoever. And so, yeah, it's, I think it's really stupid what they're doing, and it's a distraction because they really aren't solving, I guess, the issue where it needs to be solved. It would be more attractive to start a business? So, no, I don't necessarily think it will be more attractive to start a business because the landscape for running a business at the moment is just horrendous. So again, the tax system isn't set up really for, you know, really supporting business, as you can imagine. So even down to like, you know, the borrowing system isn't set up for small businesses as well. Because a lot of the, you know, lenders don't want to take a lot of risk, especially if you are a small business and you don't have a track record. You know, all the red tape, the red and the green tape that's been layered over small businesses over the past however many years, is not conducive to actually starting and operating a business longer term. So, yeah, like it's becoming very, very difficult in this country to firstly, create wealth, and then secondly, to manage it appropriately, in a way that I guess maximizes it because, yeah, if you have a look at our system compared to the rest of the world, Australia is one of the most taxed systems. So I think if anyone is smart and wants to really give life a go and make something of themselves, we're just going to lose talent left and centre, because why would people stay in this country? What's attractive about it? Why would anyone want to come here to a system that really doesn't set people up for success in business? The property market is really just all over the place at the moment. To me, it's a very scary investment at the moment, just with the way they're managing, I guess, the policy front from the state government in trying to, I guess, build and develop. So, yeah, it's really just, it's not a great place. And I think if you look at a high level, this is really just a result of the fact that we have a Labour Greens government. So this was always going to happen.

You know, this really has been because of the way our education system has been structured to basically not give people enough education through

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:41)

There's the issue of the government and the type of government. And I wanted to really ask you, I personally think that the economic issues need to transcend the social differences because it has been so common in Australia to be perhaps socially not conservative but economically conservative or vice versa. They're two very different things, and I really worry that people are bundled into okay, you're not on the far left, so you must perhaps be wanting to control people's personal social lives, something like that and then some libertarians, well, what does freedom even mean? Freedom to do what? So there are all of these questions. I'm really concerned that if we do need a government that's going to support people's economic independence, do you think there's a way to do that where people can still have the freedom to live their lives socially and culturally the way they want to?

Sarah Harding (25:49)

I think there needs to be a cultural shift in this country to, I guess, promoting success, not telling people that they have too much or that they're greedy or that the rich should get taxed or like, you know, basically like, you know, branding success as being a bad thing. We really need to, I guess, for the sake of the next generation, we need to have a cultural shift. And we also, guess the cultural shift definitely needs to come from the government because there also needs to be some level of economic reform. So, you there has to be a reform in the system that then allows, I guess, people to, you know, not just get it because I have this conversation all the time. You know, I've got a lot of teachers in my family. So I think about this a lot. But, you know, what's the benefit of education? So I guess if you look at what's happened in our country over two generations, two generations time, so two generations ago, nobody really needed to go to university. It was very easy to either get a job or start a business. From that business success, you could develop enough capital to then go and buy a home. Once you owned a home, you could then start buying investment properties or developing, or you know, basically upgrading your house. And so you not only had a successful business and contributed successfully to the community, you were also able to develop wealth. You were able to have independence. You were able to, I guess, own your, you know, your assets, your life. And the government supported this. So the government was set up in a way that basically didn't tax you to death. It was supportive of you starting a business, and everything was wonderful during that period, as we know. But unfortunately, today, I don't know whether it's the fact that the population has grown too large and the diversity has grown so diverse that, unfortunately, the ideas that once built this country and allowed people, who I guess, you know, didn't come from wealth, to succeed. Those opportunities are drastically being taken away from people. And this culture that we've got now represents something that looks more like a culture of a communist nation than the culture of, you know what I mean? Like, then the Australia that once gave

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:18)

Yes, for sure.

Sarah Harding (28:20)

the opportunity for our grandparents or ancestors to develop wealth, to buy a home, to start a business, to have success in their lives. A lot of families had four to six kids. That was just the norm. People are struggling to have one or two children now.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:38)

Thank you.

I'm wondering if perhaps the fair go and the work hard and you can create something sort of mentality really became overridden and replaced perhaps by the tall poppy syndrome and

Sarah Harding (28:59)

Could have been the tool that these people that we let in used against us. So, as you can imagine, I don't think the poppy syndrome is something that has historically been an issue in our country. It's been something that is definitely, I guess, in our generation, it's gotten worse. And so you could probably then argue that where has it come from? It hasn't come from the local people in this land. It's come from people that obviously have come to Australia and have then infiltrated our system and been able to then use that against us to then, yeah, allow that kind of culture to creep, to seep out there and to, and for people to think that that is, you know, just the way it is. And, you know, I think it's like, it's really. It doesn't serve anyone. You know, telling, pulling people down or telling them they can't do well, or, you know, you know, who would you rather be? The person who never tries and sits in their room for the rest of their life? Or someone who actually, you know, they might not get to where they want to go, or they might not be as successful as, you know, what they had once hoped. But at least they gave it a go. You know, what type of person do you want to be? Do you want to be the person who sits there, you know, in their nineties and thinks, oh, wow, I really wish I hadn't, you know, I hadn't listened to my friend next door who told me that I wasn't capable of doing anything. I wish I hadn't listened to her.

Or you were like, wow, well, like, know, this might not have worked out, or this might not have worked out, but hey, I succeeded in

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:29)

I wonder if this came from the generation before ours, a little bit. I mean, I know that, I know that you saw some people in that generation creating business, but I saw, I saw people who are now around their sixties, very much adoring and depending on the job in a large organisation. So the banks, large supermarkets that had huge offices, the bureaucratic spaces, any of those. There was a focus on jobs, and politically, I think for a long time, it was jobs in even political campaigns, and that was a selling point. It wasn't let's give people independence. Let's give people jobs. So do you think that has popped up pretty much in the last three or four decades?

Sarah Harding (31:23)

Well, yeah, as you can imagine. If you just look at the raw data, what's our population gone from to where it is today? So obviously, as you can imagine from a government perspective, like you need to be seen to be growing the country. Like, you know, you need to be seen to be an economically productive country that is growing. And so, as we know, that hasn't necessarily come from the stuff that we have been allowed to do in the country; it's been from just the sheer fact of bringing more people in. And so, as you can imagine, the more you bring people into a country, the more those types of things will be a selling point. So as businesses get bigger, as businesses get, I guess, more power, you know, they're going to need more people. So that's, I guess, what has occurred, I guess, as you've probably seen over the past few generations, is, and yeah, there are people that are coming from, I guess, economies that, you know, are 100 % government-controlled. And so, again, that maybe that's just what they're used to in countries that they're coming from. So, yeah, I think that's definitely had a big impact on the culture of Australia, that's for sure.

But I think as well now we're

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:48)

Which countries do you think are doing this better? Which countries should we be inspired by?

Sarah Harding (32:54)

Interesting like because every country I think has its pros and its cons right like I actually don't think there's like a one country we should all look at and all like you know basically just try and replicate I think it really ultimately depends on what metrics you're using to judge your economy by so are you looking at like are you basically looking to build an economy that gives people a higher standard of living, that gives people equal access to jobs and economic opportunity? Or are you just building an economy that relies heavily on bringing more people in so it looks like you're growing, you're doing something, but actually, at the end of the day, when you look at what you're actually creating in your country, you're actually not doing a lot. You're just relying heavily on the numbers for bringing people in.

It's kind of like, and obviously like when you do that, everybody knows that the more people you bring in in a short period of time, the lower the quality of life for everybody else in that country will be because you haven't had enough time to then build out the country and the infrastructure to accommodate for all of these people that are coming in. And so I think that's the main pressure that we're seeing in Australia at the moment is the fact that if you have a look back over graphs, and you have a look at how many people are coming into the country today versus how many people were coming into the country, let's say back in the 90s or whatever, we're literally bringing in like many, many more times the number of people on a daily basis into the country. And as you can imagine, back then, like things were smaller; things were like, one thing I don't like about people, especially during this debate at the moment with immigration, that you've got a lot of like, you know, and my mum's a migrant, for example, she came from England. And so, you know, she settled in Australia, and she did quite well from that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:58)

Say that my grandparents were migrants as well. They came to Australia on a boat from New Zealand. So they joked that they were boat people.

Sarah Harding (35:07)

Exactly. So it's a very common story that resonates with a lot of people. But the trap that I see today from people, you know, maybe they're not as conservative as others, is that they are looking back, you know, back to the 1950s, and they're saying, okay, well, my family came here back then. And so, you know, they were able to come in, and they were able to settle, and they did really well. like, you know, because of that, because of where they were back then and how easy it was back then to come in and just be able to contribute and help grow the country and have economic success and prosperity. We should therefore today not be having these conversations about immigration because it's not fair, because, you know, my family did it back then. So we should keep allowing people today to do that. The trap with that is that since back then, the country has grown exponentially in only certain locations, right?

So all we've done in the last however many years since that occurred is we have laid people on top of people on top of people in literally like, you know, three or four different locations. We haven't spread the country out drastically since then. And so if you have a look at some of the regional and the small towns, they haven't grown since that period of time. Yeah, yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:14)

in housing.

Well, can point on that.

Having been in Newcastle, it's a ghost town. I can't believe I'm saying that in a recording, but you go out, especially at dinner time in Newcastle, for those who are not in Australia, it is a couple of hours north of Sydney. And seriously, I didn't feel guilty telling foreign people that it's basically a small town.

Sarah Harding (36:32)

You

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:53)

Because, despite whatever it would be officially, it basically feels like a small town, and it's so quiet. So I know that economically it's impacted. I think in some of these regional areas, they become so dependent on government-funded industries to even make money. It's getting really, really messy. So you're right. You think things are concentrated in Sydney.

Sarah Harding (37:01)

Exactly.

Exactly. Yes. So again, sorry.

That's it, because it's hard for, I guess, immigration to come into Australia and then for those people to then be incentivised to go elsewhere. It's a lot. In some respects, it is a lot harder to have those people coming into Australia to then filter through to other parts of Australia. So, therefore, knowing that, today, what I say to you, just because my parents were allowed, you know, to come here and contribute and were successful. Do I think that the same person today in the same situation is coming to Australia to have exactly the same experience that my parents or my grandparents had? No, that's a really stupid thing to say. And it really, I guess, discredits or just doesn't even take into account what type of place they're coming to. What's the job market like? What's the housing market like? You know, where can they ultimately go? And so how easy it is for them to go there? Or do they need to have a degree from a university to get into a decent job? Like, they didn't need that two generations ago. I just said, like, people could come here, and it was super easy to get a job and contribute, and rent was cheap and housing. It was easy to do that. But to say today, we don't need to talk about immigration or to shut it down and say we just need to welcome migrants and everything's going to be peaceful and calm and great. And I think it's obviously a political tactic, but it really discredits, looking at some of the fundamental issues that we actually have in our economy and how the government is going to actually deal with that. And at some stage, some stage, and I don't know when this stage is, they're going to have to say, Sydney has enough people, Brisbane has enough people, Melbourne has enough people. And so a government needs to call that and then they need to sit down and say, OK, if we're full, how can we now start to incentivise people if they want to come to Australia and have a wonderful life? How can we then incentivise them to go elsewhere and to actually populate other towns, communities? How are we going to stimulate those with jobs?

How are we gonna help

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:42)

got a couple of thoughts here. Firstly, I need to acknowledge that where I live at the moment, nearly everybody, I say that not literally, but so many people in this area are attempting to set up small businesses within a government-funded health industry that is not designed for people to actually make enough money within those businesses to support themselves. They make barely any money to get by because it's heavily regulated. But that's the only that's the main industry where people think they can even make a business. But the thing I was so keen to acknowledge earlier is that back in our day, when we were young, let me know if you had this experience growing up, because the story will illustrate, sorry, the story will illustrate for people what it was really like. I would walk down, say age 10, whatever, I would walk down to the corner shop, and it was this little store where a kid could buy just some lollies, whatever, and it had the essentials. But the point is that an individual or a family would be setting up their independent little business and a store and you see that a bit more in Sydney and in regional cities, but I'm guessing you could tell me that the cost of running a small business like that now would be so much higher, especially with the cost of real estate, renting the space, things like that and other factors. So they are also competing with so many more larger business. What do you think is going on with all of that?

Sarah Harding (41:29)

Yay!

Exactly. My family have had small to medium-sized family businesses for generations. So I definitely understand this. I'll talk from my experience. So I grew up in a tool shop in central Queensland. And a relatively small business like that, I guess, started with a few people and grew to about 13.

Then he acquired another business. You know, by the end of his business journey, he was at about five staff, and it was time to kind of sell up. And I think he really sold it just at the right time because it was just before the Labour government came in again. As we know, this always happens through a Labour government. So I was very stressed at this time because I just I knew, you know, we needed to kind of get out. It was that moment where it was like we either sell it or we scale up because the only businesses now, small businesses, have been forced to scale up to be able to handle the fact that costs have gone through the roof whether it is like, you know, the cost of energy, and not just the cost of energy now, but the cost of like maintaining the energy. Do we need solar panels? Do we need batteries? Do we need like XYZ? Are we paying, you know, tax on these items as well? So the government taxes everything, let's face it. So cost of energy, cost of real estate as well. So, as we know, that's something that is a considerable expense for a lot of small businesses. There have been some solutions, maybe in, like, I think, the professional space in this, but in retail, as you know, it's not something you can kind of do a lot for. If anything, you know, it's pushed a lot more businesses online. And so, you know, a lot of businesses maybe haven't decided to have that retail shopfront because it is a lot more expensive. Although some have as well, and they've done well, but they've all needed to, guess, have a larger strategy than just setting up one business because ultimately, you know, at the end of the day, if you're not getting as many people shopping at your shop, you're not making as much revenue, the cost of wages have gone up as well. So, and you know, like, you know, if you are somebody that does work in a business and you don't own a business, that's a wonderful thing. Like, you know, you've had to have your wages go up to meet the cost of living crisis. So by no means am I saying that that's a bad thing.

But from a business person's perspective, it's another cost that gets factored in. So the cost of insurance has gone up. You know, the cost of insuring to say you've got a retail business, the cost to ensure your products have gone up. So all of the costs have gone up considerably. So imagine how much revenue you would need to turn over just to have that business even tick one cent of profit. And so that's why you've seen a lot of these smaller businesses in the last five years have had to scale up because they just needed additional revenue to keep up with the cost of everything going up. I say this, though, with I think some states and some states are a lot better than others in this respect. So I saw something last week from that I got an email about. And for example, in Queensland, because there is an LNP government, they are now incentivising small to medium-sized businesses by giving them, I think, incentives for hiring tradies, for example. So engineering businesses like hiring tradies and, you know, a scheme to then help these businesses to actually hire more people. I think that's a wonderful thing. I think that's great. Obviously, there's some terms associated with that. But at least the government is being proactive in this space because hiring people at the moment is one of the largest costs for a small business. So much goes into it.

If the person doesn't work out, it's a huge cost, like marketing costs to try and acquire somebody. So that's one thing I did see from a state government that is being done. Do I see that here in New South Wales? No, not so much. So yeah, yeah. So I think there are definitely some things that state governments can do to then try and help with the lowering the cost of certain items.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:33)

so it's more in other states.

Sarah Harding (45:46)

Think our state has previously tried to incentivise, you know, helping businesses with energy costs, for example. But I kind of question some of those metrics as well, because at the end of the day, we're like trying to help people buy batteries with no interest, for example, at the moment.

Is that sustainable if your battery only lasts like 10 years? Probably not, because in 10 years' time, you will have to have the money to replace that item. So again, guess incentives can be great during this period of time, but without actual economic reform, like, yeah, you still need to do something so that in 10 years time when you need to replace whatever you've given somebody, they've got the cashflow to be able to then do that, or you keep just providing benefits.

I think if the government doesn't think that it's important for people to be self-sufficient and if we don't fix our culture issue, then yeah, I don't see how our system will be sustainable because we've now just created a system where people are used to handouts.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (46:57)

Absolutely. A few things are emerging there because you said that you grew up around a tool shop, and I think that the consumer product retail space, we all know how that ended up, and we blamed the internet for a long time, but something larger happened. Even where I live, yet another Kmart has been set up and I feel very, very concerned that

In theory, some leaders are saying, we need to shop local, we need to support local creators. But then how can anyone compete when people are feeling stuck economically, people are feeling financially squeezed, and then they see that you can buy something for $1. And that seems like their only option when they are on a tight budget, even though they might care deeply about the small businesses. It's really

Sarah Harding (47:55)

Exactly.

This is the thing. So if the government doesn't identify that what they're doing, I guess, with the system they're building is doing nothing more but like pushing a lot more people into worse financial situations, that then has a huge flow-on effect for the economy. And so you actually need people to be wealthy to be able to shop local. Let's face it, like you need people to have excess cash flow. If you've got excess cash flow,

I don't care if I'm spending an extra $100 on my shoes or $200 on that item over there. You need people to be wealthy to afford those things. If people are gonna sit at home and be like, I can't afford to go out or do this or do that, it has huge impact on the economy. People need to start realising that. And if you don't identify that and do something about it, then again, I don't see how our economy is going to be sustainable because you're gonna have a growing group of people who have no means to be able to self-fund themselves and to develop any kind of success in life and create a lot of wealth for themselves to be able to be self-sufficient. And so those people are gonna get detrimentally angrier and angrier at the system, at the government, everybody. And so that will then filter through to the policies that you start seeing the government trying to implement in the economy. And that's where it all kind of crumbles. So we've gone from a system where, like, you know, it was less diverse, it was smaller, it was very much like, if you think about it, like, I don't know about you, but I think hearing about like tax evasion, or people doing the wrong thing, a few generations ago was probably a very rare occurrence because most people wanted to pay some level of tax. They wanted to contribute to the system. They wanted to make sure that that system was set up. So they obviously knew that the money they were paying for that was going into the hospitals, the schools. Things were working well. But I guess, like I've said, things now are just so diverse. They're getting so large. So many cracks are formulating in the system.

And again, we're developing and growing a larger group of people who now don't have the ability to fund themselves. Well, I don't see how that is going to be sustainable longer term. But again, you need a government with a vision. You need a government with a majority. You need a government with a clear agenda to be able to do things that will then try to actually fix the issue. But to do that, need a lot of things to go right to be able to do that. And I think, yeah, I don't know if it'll ever happen.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (50:59)

I think we need to give some hope to people, at least within the situation that this country is in. So, along with figuring out what people can control, I'm curious, do you think the best solution at the moment is for people to explore knowledge, economies and AI and also

Sarah Harding (51:08)

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:24)

trading with other countries, maybe training people who are overseas, training them online, anything like that. And I'm worried that perhaps the margin will just be better for that than doing those practical industries over here that can be really suited to some personalities. You know, some people want to build something physically.

Sarah Harding (51:49)

Exactly. Yeah. So I think, I think what kind of advice are you? I think it depends on I think you just have to look at how the economy has been structured, what industries are making money, what industries are doing well, and what industries again, will be doing well into the future, and then try to tailor your, I guess, life around that. That's probably the advice I would give. So you know, upskill yourself.

And again, we live in a very global world. So you need to know what's going on everywhere. Because I feel like if you do, then you know that Australia is very much behind the eight ball when it comes to following countries like the UK or the US. So if you know what's happening in other parts of the world, trends are taking off or things that, know, money that's going into industries or whatnot, then you can start to think about how, you know, what you need to do in your life here to set yourself up.

AI, for example, like, you know, we all know that that's something that's, you know, huge in the US right now. There's a lot of capital going into it. There's a lot of development going into it. And I guess we're starting to see some of that flow over here as well, because a lot of it's the tech space and obviously, technology allows us to be a lot more global. But yeah, for example, I think it's, you know, it's very important to understand what these trends are, understand, I guess, you know, what is happening in the economy, and try to then tailor what it is you're doing around that. Like, if you look sometimes as well, it's the same with investing. If you judge something by its past and you say, Okay, well, in the last five years, then this asset has performed this way. So it's going to perform this way for the next five. I think you're probably going to run into some issues because, as you know, things develop and grow all the time. If you're trying again, like strategies, if you're trying to create a strategy, that is past looking, and you're not factoring in all those things that are occurring at the moment, you know, in the economy or in the world, then you might run into some issues. For example, property investing, like, you know, in my local area. So there was a property around the corner. I follow it quite closely because my grandparents once owned it many years ago. And since then, it's been, obviously, they passed away. It's been developed.

And from time to time, I just like to have a look at how things are going right. And so I remember in 2021, one of the apartments that were built there sold for like 9.1 million. And I was like, oh, wow, that seems like such a big amount for an apartment on the waterfront. You know what I mean? Like it's still manly. it's, you know, like it's still got some local elements to it.

But I recently saw it come up for sale on Mossman Living, like they were trying to get rid of it. And I was like, Why is this happening? Like, we're halfway through a labour term. Nobody sells prestige property halfway through a labour term. I wouldn't do it if you didn't need to. And so they were advertising a 13.5, and I was like, they're not going to get 13.5 million in this market. To me, that is being very optimistic. So obviously these people are probably, I would assume, they probably overcapitalized at just about the wrong time. So that's when the market was booming. And so went to auction once didn't obviously get what they wanted. So the price kept coming down. So I think I saw it at 13.5. I then saw it at 12. I still like, this is really high. Then it finally came down to auction at like 10.9 or something. And I was like, wow, it's they keep knocking stuff off because obviously it's a hard market. And they were just about to go to auction again and it sold for 10.25 but if you think about it, so on a property like that, you've got stamp duty originally, which is probably about 600 grand. You've got agents fee to sell it, which is probably a couple of hundred grand. So between what they paid for it and what they sold it for, you probably made like a couple of hundred grand. So again, why did you buy it? Because you could have just held cash and made a lot more money.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (55:44)

That is very significant because I think that in recent years, bought properties for anything. I mean, we saw people our age buying properties for a million or two, people bought for any amount, thinking it's just going to go up and up and up. And there's the assumption. I think you showed people the math that they don't think about. Australians want to buy a house; it's the cultural thing. But then, after all of the costs, you're not actually making that much money from it.

Sarah Harding (56:34)

Exactly. And so if you think about it, if that person was a little bit smarter with their capital, $9.3 million invested wisely would have given you significantly more money to then be able to rent somewhere, probably a little bit better and still end up with more money at the end of the day. So what I think they probably would have done was they probably got sold the property

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (56:47)

Yeah.

Sarah Harding (56:58)

I don't think they probably got any advice on it. And what they did was they probably looked back at the last five years, and they saw in that space that properties had doubled. So they probably thought, Wow, like, you know, I'll buy this, I'll never lose. And people tell themselves, I'll never lose money here, or just keep going up and all this kind of whatever, without actually factoring in. They bought one year before Albo gets elected. And do you really think the Labour government are going to be helping you with your $10 million property to grow your wealth? No, of course not. Again, like, I feel like, yeah, that was a pretty, for anyone who's switched on to the economy and to politics and to understanding, you know, different sides of government and how they, I guess, interact with different types of asset classes, that was a, you would have been able to see that from a mile away. But these people obviously just, again, got sold something without even thinking about it, they probably love the location, like it's beautiful, it's got a lovely view and whatever, but at the end of the day, things that happened over the past five to 10 years may not play out again over the next five to 10 years. So like, you always have to be mindful that just because something happened in the past a certain way, that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, in the next five years, it's gonna happen exactly the same way or it's gonna keep continuing. Now, you know, there's always a risk with that. But at the end of the day, in this example, obviously, what's happened is there is just a boom at the moment in the luxury apartment space. And so like, why would I go and spend $10 million there when I have so many other properties at that price point, and they're all new and they're all like, you know, in exactly similar kinds of good locations and why am gonna buy your property now that I've got all this

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (58:50)

In terms of investing. So, although perhaps when someone is starting a business, it would be crazy to start three or four at the same time, but in terms of investing other resources beyond a business, do you think this is illustrating how it's important not to put all your eggs in one basket?

Sarah Harding (59:08)

Yeah, definitely. depends on again, like it depends how much capital you've got. I don't like this argument that these investment apartments are lifestyle assets. I really think that, and again, this is what the government is trying to incentivise. So then they make the stamp duty to make money from it. I think it's a very lazy way to make money. And so, you know, if we have capital like that, that is being placed lazily. That's why our economy has such huge productivity issues. That's why the economy is doing so poorly. I just think that, even if you're a billionaire or a multi-billionaire, buying something like that. Yeah, I just I don't see why you do that with your capital when you could do something else with it. That is much better that enhances the return that again, and actually does something or has a bigger impact than just acquiring a piece of real estate that you really think, you know, it's the land value at the end of the day. It's not the building because, as we know, these buildings, you know, the quality just isn't the way that it used to be. Yeah, I don't like this. Yeah. And again, so you have to come back and think you're like, well, why has access to, and nothing I've said tonight is obviously financial advice. This is my my opinion. It's based on what I see. I have eyes. I have a brain.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:00:15)

Hope to show up.

Sarah Harding (1:00:32)

I'm just talking from my own life experience here. If anyone needs to get personal financial advice on their circumstances, by all means go and do it. So I'm only talking from like, you know, what I'm seeing. Yeah, at the end of the day, like, I just really think, I don't think the government has done a wonderful job with the policy framework that they put around, you know, development. And I think they've made it harder for people to access financial advice. So again, they don't want people to make smart decisions because if they did, they will then make it easier for people to go and get advice and to then weigh up and consider what it is they're doing. And so, yeah, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. What are your thoughts?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:01:22)

Financial advice. Look, I still believe that even as AI is making some things efficient and it could give general information, I know that people are still trying to learn how to feed the right input to AI and how to relate to it. And so, at least at this point in history, the personalised human approach is needed with advice. And I know, I know within my soul that there will always be a need for human interaction and something that's simply relatable. And you mentioned COVID. I can trust that you would have such a different experience having a conversation with a client in person to say, Okay, look, how are you feeling right now? Because I'm sure that people make emotional decisions as well, but it's fascinating that so much of this has been about property because there are so many aspects to finance. But I hope that if people are looking to invest, why not invest more money into business ideas instead of just more property?

What would happen if more people in Australia would invest into innovative businesses or even more independent businesses that are going to give Australia more of a self-sufficient future?

Sarah Harding (1:02:56)

Yeah, well, think there needs to be obviously some altering of the policy dynamics in this country for that to be, I guess, somewhat attractive. So, obviously, there's an inherent risk with investing in business. And so if you are looking to invest, would definitely seek out advice, use your AI, you know, get as much talk to as many people as possible, get different perspectives on things, and then really try and work out what is best for you before doing things. But inherently, people suffer from a whole range of biases. The thing about technology is that it can be turned off. So, and I mean this by like, depending on your personality will depend on how you read certain things, how your brain, I guess, resonates with certain information and then how you cognitively and emotively make decisions. So technology can always be switched off, it can be ignored, it can be avoided, you know, all those types of things. So to say that technology is going to be the one solution that helps everyone in the future, I think, is definitely something that needs to be addressed as well, because if the government just want to keep saying that they're going to push everyone onto AI and AI will just help everyone with their investments and their portfolios and yada, yada, yada. I think, again, we'll definitely have some societal issues that need to be addressed at some point in the future because, as we know from human nature and psychology, it's oftentimes not adequate to help people make good decisions for themselves in their lives.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:04:47)

Right, right. So if we're going to look forward and keep in mind that people could be listening from anywhere. So can we give any general tips, not financial advice, any tips to anyone listening in any countries if they are figuring out, okay, how can I just aim for some independence, even if it could be difficult within the environment that we're in?

Sarah Harding (1:04:49)

Alright.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:05:16)

What can we do to have a spirit of independence?

Sarah Harding (1:05:20)

Yeah, so I think just being super aware and knowledgeable. So I think one of the biggest challenges that we face today is that of trusting. So, trusting the platforms that you're using, trusting what you're reading online, just trusting technology as a whole. So you need to make sure that you are upskilling yourself, learning, developing and questioning absolutely everything because people need to be super aware of, I guess, the providers that they're using, the platforms they're using, where they're generating information and how they are making those decisions. So, you know, as we know, you know, we've got a huge issue with people getting scammed in this country. And the laws I don't think we've got in place are really that wonderful when it comes to it. And so, again, something else that needs to be addressed, but...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:06:18)

That's really hard, actually. This slams. It's also difficult to trace because it could come from any country, right?

Sarah Harding (1:06:19)

Like, yay.

That's it, so I'll talk for example, I know someone like, let's say six months ago they got scammed and it was one of those scams where they call you over your mobile phone, they convince you that they're part of PayPal, they say that like you need to help them in a certain way to get a certain outcome and they basically, they basically just convince you that they are who they say they are and that you need to basically help them or else.

And so I know this one person, and yeah, they did get scammed for a bit of money. It was like five grand or something like that. It was significant enough for this individual. And because it was a cash scam, so they were convinced to go into a branch, get money out and then place it into an account. ⁓ It then wasn't trackable because, yes, yeah, yeah. So.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:07:10)

God, they've got physical cash.

Sarah Harding (1:07:18)

And this person was older, this person was elderly, this person wasn't necessarily as technologically savvy as what you and I would be possibly because of their age. And so, yeah, at the end of the day, the institutions were like, well, sorry, we don't really need to do anything about this and bad luck kind of

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:07:41)

Do you know what that person did with the cash? Was the person told to send it somewhere, post it?

Sarah Harding (1:07:47)

They were told to go into a branch and put it into an account. So, yes, obviously, that person put in requests to then say, like, tell the bank once they'd realised what had happened. And obviously, if you're like convinced to do such a thing, nobody really wants to then admit that they've been scammed because it's such a traumatic experience that people are like, Oh, I don't, Oh, my God, I can't believe what's happened. Like, I can't believe I even believe that. And so they

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:07:51)

my god.

Sarah Harding (1:08:16)

they let the branches know what had occurred. yeah, ⁓ at the end of the day, at the end of the day, they did dispute, they tried to dispute the transaction. What had occurred as well was that they walked into a branch, asked for this $5,000 of cash out. And because of our, I think, AML laws and the standard practice of the bank, the bank turned around and said, we didn't necessarily have to ask you any additional questions about the transaction, which may have stopped this person getting the cash out and the bank basically just didn't want a bar of it. They didn't want to take responsibility for this incident. However, you know, from my perspective, it's kind of a bit like, well, did they enable that? Did they do anything to try to work out or work out what the funds were even for? Most times you go into the bank and you take out five grand, they'll ask you what you're look, and I in cash. Well, this is the issue. It's kind of a bit scary at the moment, though, because I can understand, I can see both sides of it. So cash can't be traced. So it then means that if something goes wrong, then there's no system to then be able to do anything about it. But at the same time, if you went and said, Okay, let's remove cash from our system. That means then that like if the government issues you, and especially with like digital ID, if the government issues you with a fine or a tax bill or whatever, if you've seen any of these forms, you know, that have come out recently, it now says that if you don't pay within a certain amount of time, we will take money out of your account, we'll do this, we'll do that. It's basically very dictatorship. And so I heard of somebody recently who got a letter like this and it was actually faulty, so it wasn't even true.

And so, as you can imagine, I don't think that it is a great system to have either because it can be manipulated. especially if we don't have independent people in our society, that ultimately can be misused, so I can understand the difficulty with the cash thing. I think you kind of need it, but maybe we just need, again, I still don't understand that like from a bank's perspective, if money's been deposited into an account, why you can't just take the money back out of the account or trace that person, trace their accounts, take their money and replace the money. Like to me, something's going on in the banking sector, but if somebody puts money in and it's incorrect, the bank should have the ability then to try and rectify that if they can prove that it's been an incorrect transaction. They shouldn't just say, Well, your fault you deposited it, then nothing you can do, we can't do this. kind of, yeah, it's...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:11:09)

Actually, Sarah, I heard something. So someone in conversation told me months ago that part of the problem is that there's such a quantity of these scams. And so many people are needing help with that, that it seems like it would take a lot of resources and time to chase up all of these scams on the banking end. I don't know what's going on there. But in terms of catching the people who are doing this. It's just happening so often.

Sarah Harding (1:11:33)

Yes.

Sarah Harding (1:11:41)

That's it, yes, and that's it as well. So most people, if they get scammed, will probably think, well, it's not worth my time. Like it's, you know, if you get scammed $1,000 and you've got a full-time job and you're working, you're busy, and you've got kids and stuff like that, you probably think, it's just the $1,000, I'll let it slide, you know, whatever, move on, too hard. But if that's happening at scale, as you can imagine, the scammers are getting away with a lot of money. And yeah, that's not a great societal outcome if it happens to you again and again.

It's definitely something that I think needs to be better addressed from the government. They definitely need to address it better than what they've got at the moment. The systems they've got in place just don't think... I don't know if we don't have the staff that are, I guess, experienced enough or educated enough, or I don't know. But maybe it's just a very difficult thing, like you said. If it's happening so often, it's probably just something very hard for people to then get on top of.

So yeah, it's, giving people some tips just to be very careful when you are engaging with anything online, making sure double check, you know, emails you're getting or double check text messages or, you know, even ask someone else like, does this look like if you're not sure, get someone else to then check it before you do something. Like, just be very careful because, you know, some of these scammers are just very convincing, very, very professional. And yeah, it's always good if there's any level of doubt in your mind or you're not sure about something, always just, again, reach out to someone. Hence, you know, going and getting financial advice or having someone there to help you through these periods is very important. But why the government has, you know, created the cost of being able to access these things again is still, to me, something that I don't think makes a lot of sense. And to say that like, everything will be on AI, well, you still need a human to confirm with you that you're not getting scammed. So yeah, it doesn't make, it doesn't make any sense.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:13:51)

For sure.

Along with the financial advice, though, you can get cybersecurity training. And I saw a few years ago, there are so many services for businesses to get cybersecurity training, but perhaps we need that more readily available for individuals as well.

Sarah Harding (1:14:13)

That's it as well. So coming back to like, what are we teaching kids at school, and what kinds of education are we actually helping people to learn so that they can succeed in life? I think that's something that definitely needs to be addressed. So it's not just like learning maths and learning about finance and being self-sufficient and learning about money. It's also learning about technology, learning about cyber security, making sure that, like, you know, our whole life is built around technology. So we should be teaching kids how to help use this healthily to then be able to succeed in life. But even again, back to the government, the government's not doing this. We've just banned kids off social media. Again, how is this helping anybody to succeed in life? I don't know. I totally understand that, you know, parents are very concerned. And a lot of parents have had such bad experiences with their kids being online. But what else can we do as a society to then help our kids understand technology, understand social media and understand how to use it wisely so that they can then, I you know, I guess it can help them not have these detrimental problems that they have been having, which has led to this ban.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:15:34)

Educate yourselves basically.

Sarah Harding (1:15:36)

Exactly, yes. And we live in such a complex world that, yeah, you just have to be across so much these days.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:15:45)

Yeah, definitely. So the main thing is to learn the things that we didn't learn in school and continue learning throughout life because the world is evolving. Things are changing. And it seems like, Sarah, one of the top things we can do to look after ourselves financially, beyond where to put our money, is where to work. One of the first things we can do is to simply get informed and understand.

Sarah Harding (1:16:15)

Exactly. Yes, that's, that's definitely the best tip I can give to anybody. And yeah, just making sure that you're across things and working out who to trust and who not to trust. I think that's a very big and technology, what technology to trust, what not to trust. That's very much like a very important skill in life is to know who to trust and make sure you're getting the right advice. So, you know, what makes somebody capable of giving you advice? So look at somebody's background. What educational achievements have they done? What experiences have they had? Why are they giving you this advice and why are they capable of giving you this advice to then vet whether you should be listening to that person on that certain topic? think having the ability to think critically and really think about like, you know, what agenda has somebody got? Why are giving me this advice? You know, is this in my best interest or is it in their best interest? Like it's all those kinds of skills to then help you to make better decisions.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:17:25)

Definitely. Sarah, thank you so much for all of the wisdom, and we have really been able to explore ways to navigate this evolving world, and it has been so good to catch up. Thanks for doing this.

Sarah Harding (1:17:43)

That's all right. Thank you so much for having me on. yeah, it was wonderful talking through, I guess just, yeah, important things. And yeah, I hope the listeners have gotten a lot out of it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:17:55)

Awesome.