Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister, Daniel Mulino, reaffirmed the Government’s focus on expanding access to financial advice, signalling further regulatory and education reforms as a growing number of Australians approach retirement.
Speaking at the Melbourne leg of the FAAA’s roadshow event series, Mulino told attendees that improving the availability of advice was a priority, alongside maintaining appropriate consumer protections.
“I’m very conscious that what you do is critical to people in terms of getting good lifetime outcomes,” he said, noting the increasing importance of advice as the population ages.
Mulino pointed to ongoing consultations, including on the CSLR, and reforms aimed at boosting adviser numbers, including changes to education pathways, as well as a series of ongoing consultations across the regulatory framework.
These include work on compensation arrangements and broader consumer protection settings, which he said the government was approaching “holistically”.
He also acknowledged the role of the FAAA in shaping policy, describing it as “a really effective organisation” and an important voice for the profession.
…We are in a very uncertain period when it comes to the macroeconomy…
Beyond the advice sector, Mulino framed the upcoming federal budget (Tuesday 12 May) against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty, citing geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions and inflationary pressures.
“We are in a very uncertain period when it comes to the macroeconomy,” he said, adding that repeated global shocks – from the global financial crisis to Covid-19 – had reinforced the need to strengthen economic resilience.
“There will be some issues relating to intergenerational fairness in this budget,” he said, with some measures expected to flow through the tax system.
Mulino wouldn’t take questions from the floor, but offered to answer individual questions over lunch.
LOL.
Who would want to become an adviser with the ever increasing cost of ASIC industry funding, CSLR and PI constantly going up and up while having to battle an anti-FSP AFCA.
It is a difficult position to fix where vested interest groups are at ministers doors, plugging "their" solutions that are not solutions for the many, rather strategies to suit their own agenda's and of course the Political Parties own agenda's, which once combined, ALWAYS produces a War and Peace volume of complexity and unworkable red tape.
Keeping it simple and as a mandatory field, "it must pass the commonsense test," means after a decade of the merry go round, we always end up at the same spot.
The solution is simple, always has been simple, though none of the vested interest brigades will want it as it does not suit their game.
Until common sense comes back into the play, this merry go round will keep spinning.
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