The financial services and advice sector has generally welcomed the return of the Turnbull Government and has urged it to conclude legislative changes to professional standards and life insurance reforms.
The Financial Planning Association (FPA), the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and the Financial Services Council (FSC) said the return of the Federal Government would see them engaging with it in due course, with the FSC also ‘welcoming’ the conclusion of the election and its outcome.
While the FPA stated it would continue its work promoting education and professional standards, FPA Chief Executive, Dante De Gori said changes to superannuation and life insurance “…will be key policy areas for the FPA to address with the returning Government”.
De Gori said the FPA would also continue its work in educating consumers around superannuation with the election results demonstrating that voters were dissatisfied with the changes in the May budget.
AFA Chief Executive, Brad Fox said his association was waiting for the announcement of the government’s ministry team before heading to Canberra but would also continue its advocacy work with the Labor Opposition, the Greens, minor parties and the independents
Fox did not address specific policy issues but stated the close election results placed pressure on all side of politics to act in the interest of the nation first.
“Australians are looking for a clear vision of the future, well-considered policy and strong leadership. The constituents of the financial advice sector share this view,” Fox said.
“We will continue in our role of representing to Government the key issues and opportunities to raise trust and confidence in the financial advice profession, enabling the value of advice to be experienced by more Australians. We will also represent policy positions that lead to furthering the ability of more Australians to take control of their financial futures.”
The FSC called on the returned government to “…get straight to work on a broad and diverse reform agenda for financial services” including the reintroduction of the Life Insurance Reform Bill and introduction of legislation to increase standards required of financial advisers, labelling these a key priorities.
Calls were also made by the FSC for the reintroduction of legislation to allow consumers to choose their own super fund and more competition and governance across the superannuation sector.
FSC Chief Executive Sally Loane said the financial services could provide future economic growth alongside other service sectors and “…the reform we are seeking is imperative for delivering better consumer outcomes. We urge the government and the Parliament to get on with the job of delivering this agenda”.
Non-aligned advice group Synchron called for certainty on how the Life Insurance Framework (LIF) would be applied to advisers given that its rough form was known to the industry.
“Now is the time to look at issues such as the LIF in the cold light of day and see how it will be implemented,” said Synchron Director, Don Trapnell, adding, “The basic thrust of LIF is there but there are certain areas we need to refine.”
van Manen Returned in Tight Contest
In related news, last week Riskinfo reported that Bert van Manen, the former financial adviser and the Liberal member for Forde in Queensland was facing a knife-edge result and was trailling his Labor opponent, Des Hardman, at the time of publication.
Since then van Manen has pulled ahead and now leads by nearly 1000 votes on a two-party preferred basis and is nearly 4000 votes ahead on first preferences, with 87.8% of votes counted.
He was a strong supporter of financial advisers in the last Parliament during debates around the Life Insurance Framework reforms and appears to have secured the seat for the Turnbull Government off the back of postal votes.
His party colleague and Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Small Business prior to the election, Kelly O’Dwyer, comfortably won her seat of Higgins in the inner suburbs of Melboune despite a slight swing against her towards a Greens candidate.
O’Dwyer attracted nearly 60% of votes on two-party preferred basis and was more than 12,000 votes ahead with 73.3% of votes counted at the time of publication.
Speculation has appeared in mainstream media that her parliamentary roles may be split with another front-bencher following the announcement of the new cabinet next week.
What we need now is a clear and concise action plan from the AFA and FPA around the LIF with it’s unworkable suggestions and recommendations.
Both the AFA and FPA have said nothing of relevance in this article and must be more
open with their future plans and direction.
Clearly they are babes in the woods when it comes to the proper analysis and
implementation of the Life Insurance Framework and the Government knows even
less, so it is the blind leading the blind.
The only organisation that has a grasp is the LICG and members of the AFA and FPA MUST DEMAND that their associations talk to and learn from the experience and leadership that the LICG have shown, which has put independent advisers and all
Australians “rights” back on the agenda, something the AFA and FPA failed to do.
The FSC have ZERO credibility and the AFA, FPA, LICG must push for the FSC to be
removed from any discussions around LIF.
Great news on Bert Van Manen. He is the only politician with an excellent grasp of
our Industry and is on our side.
As an industry we need to get behind Bert and push for him to be given the small
Business portfolio as Kelly O’Dwyer is too far removed and busy as the assistant treasurer and mum to her growing baby, to be able to effectively handle the most important portfolio and economic driver, which is the Small Business sector.
Well the election is over the cards are being dealt yet again but will we get the same hand we all threw in last time from the AFA FPA and FSC Nothing I have heard seems to indicates otherwise ? With voting hardly completed the FSC is showing their hand for all to see if your looking NO CHANGE but the urgent push to get it through is also very apparent before someone actually listens to the LICG appley representing the advisers point of view on this along with them still asking some very important questions that have still not been answered 1/ how do consumers win from this
2/ what is the position with the ” carve out” of direct insurers and others from the legislation. I know there are more but can we get an answer on these first in some timely manner at least ?
Brad this is your chance to reserect the AFA and remove the doubt created by getting in there and fighting There are no more chances after this and the legislation as stands will kill off half your membership for one reason or another
To the AFA and FPA. Before you go running off to the government will you PLEASE tell the readers of RiskInfo just what it is that you will be saying? You have been asked this type of question time and time again but have NEVER responded! Why? Why will you not tell your adviser members how you are representing them to the government? What are you hiding? If you are not hiding anything, then please publicly state in RiskInfo how you are going to fight for the rights of your risk advisers?
The following questions were asked of Ben in a previous issue of RiskInfo;
1. how does reducing the amount of independent risk specialists (a stated outcome of the reforms) and driving people to direct insurance providers (who only sell their product and do not have to act in the BEST INTERESTS OF CLIENTS) and “google” self research promote access to unbiased advice?
2. what do these reforms actually do to stop churning that couldn’t have been done by the insurers themselves. If an adviser (or direct sales person) meets a new client who has existing insurance and cancels and replaces the policy how do these laws prevent this?
3. MOST IMPORTANT. Name a single benefit to consumers. I only ask for 1. Just 1 benefit
Yet no answers have been provided! Why?
How do you all expect your adviser members to believe that you are all truly representing their best interests when you will not answer these questions?
The only truly representation risk advisers have is via the LICG and Bert van Manen – please don’t give up. You are all we have.
As previously stated, the AFA, FPA and certainly the FSC are not remotely interested in the IFA market and clearly have no interest in improved outcomes for consumers.I have rarely seen such self serving, dishonest representations as being witnessed by these three. I wonder if the AFA & FPA have been offered full membership of ALL the tied advisers when the FSC finishes its demolition of IFA’s?
Self serving…nothing to see here….
What we now need is a good look at the dishonestly happening and the disgraceful way in which the FSC and industry bodies have acted.
The FSC are once again putting all of their efforts into reducing adviser commissions and competition whilst not delivering on their own code of conduct.
The FSC have been called out by the LICG and advisers to publicly state the benefits of the LIF to consumers (when there are not any) and to publicly show facts that there is an issue with adviser churn (when actual data proves this is not the case).
The FSC have deliberately ignored requests to provide this.
The FSC have deliberately misled government by not dealing truthfully and have lobbied only to introduce changes that will increase their profits and reduce competition.
The FSC have deliberately misled government, the AFA and FPA with sneaking in carve outs for direct business.
The FSC have acted as a anti competitive consortium to price fix remuneration whilst all of their members have been increasing consumer premiums.
The AFA and FPA have not acted in the best interest of consumer and their members which is their constitutional obligation to do so and have not acted on the wishes of their members.
The AFA and FPA have been duped by the FSC and are simply too heavily funded by them and their members to act honestly and impartially.
So what we need is to start calling out this dishonesty and start looking at new legislation that only puts consumers first.
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