Dr Sam Wylie

And so, you know, ideally in Australia, what we would have is either very strong education, finance education and finance literacy.

And that's what you're engaged in, right, is elevating finance literacy for people, especially for young people, which is extremely helpful thing.

So we'd either have good finance literacy or we'd have reliable, cheap, trustworthy financial advice.

And then that freedom of choice, instead of being a curse, would be a blessing.

But actually, we don't have either of those things.

We don't have high levels of financial literacy.

I know you're working on that and doing a good job.

I am too.

So we don't have high levels of financial literacy and our financial advice sector is an absolute mess.

And you said just a moment ago, Kate, that the high regulation of financial advice, which has come about through necessity because a lot's gone wrong in financial advice in Australia.

It's come about through necessity, but it does mean that it's more expensive than it would be otherwise.

So it is quite problematic.

Well, so there's not a lot of people who call themselves economists, but economics is everywhere.

It's a little bit like you probably don't know a lot of people who would call themselves mathematicians.

The viewers here on the podcast probably don't know anyone who would describe themselves as a mathematician, but you use maths all the time.

all day, every day.

You're making simple mental calculations.

So you use maths, but you don't know anybody who studies or teaches maths.

Of course, you know, maths teachers, and we can think of them as mathematicians.

It's the same with economics.