As the industry draws breath after the passage of the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reform legislation, we are seeking your opinion about the last-minute inclusion of the class order relief that will exempt certain advisers from complying with the contentious opt-in regulations.
We are asking:
Do you support the class order relief exemption on opt-in for advisers who are bound by a code of conduct?
At the very end of the FoFA debate, Financial Services Minister, Bill Shorten, introduced the opt-in class order relief exemption, following negotiations with and between various industry interest groups, including the FPA and the Industry Super Network.
(This initiative was also accompanied by an announcement that the Government would table legislation by 1 July 2013 which would enshrine the term ‘financial planner/financial adviser’ in law.)
This easing of the proposed opt-in regime appears to be a positive step, at least for those advisers who will be operating under a complying code of conduct by 1 July 2013. However, the last-minute inclusion of this amendment drew a mixed response from the industry – not necessarily because of its content but because of its timing and apparent lack of consultation with all but a few of the industry’s key stakeholders.
If your current membership association’s code of conduct was not eligible for the opt-in class order relief, would this motivate you to switch to one that had an eligible code of conduct, or would you perhaps take out multiple memberships?
If you are not currently a member of an adviser association, would the opt-in class order exemption motivate you to join?
Let us know how important this opt-in exemption will be for you and your practice (or not!) in the new FoFA reform world…
The comments below were sent to Mark Rantall and Richard Klipin by me on the 22nd September 2010.
“I’m sending you a couple of articles from the “Financial Review” and “BRW” over recent weeks about the stance of the 2 NSW independents towards the small business community. If the articles are correct the 2 MPs will act in the best interests of small business in the current term of Federal Parliament. However, I suggest the AFA actively engage its membership base in the electorates of New England and Lyne and get our colleagues in these areas to go and see Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott about the potential banning of Life Insurance commissions and the introduction of the “Opt in” arrangements. The 2 MPs need to understand the impact these changes will have on financial advisers running small businesses in their electorates. It will ensure that when the legislation is presented to Federal Parliament in 2011 these provisions are not contained in the bill. If it is then these 2 members should be persuaded not to support the changes.
Just in case the 2 independents can’t be persuaded to drop these 2 matters then a concerted national lobbying campaign needs to be launched by all members especially in relation to the Coalition parties so that when they form government in the future they commit to overturn these changes if they are legislated next year. We saw the union movement successfully overthrow Work Choices in the 2007 Federal Election and we should get the Coalition to do the same for our profession going forward.”
It’s thanks to the independents and the lobbying they experienced that we have had this last minute compromise. If it wasn’t for them we would be facing an Opt-in world from July 1 next year!Thanks to a hung Parliament we have dodged a very unfair IFN/Labor Party bullet!
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