{"id":14239,"date":"2012-02-15T09:59:11","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T23:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=14239"},"modified":"2012-02-15T10:05:31","modified_gmt":"2012-02-15T00:05:31","slug":"coalition-slams-government-on-fofa-processes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2012\/02\/15\/coalition-slams-government-on-fofa-processes\/","title":{"rendered":"Coalition Slams Government on FoFA Processes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Coalition has accused the Government of failing to properly assess the impact that its\u00a0proposed Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms will have on\u00a0businesses and consumers.<\/p>\n

Opposition Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Senator Mathias Cormann<\/strong>, condemned the Government for not having sufficient information\u00a0 in its possession in order make considered decisions about key elements of the FoFA reform proposals.<\/p>\n

This criticism follows a Senate Committee hearing this week that included questioning of the Office of Best Practice Regulation\u00a0(OBPR) in relation to its assessment of the likely\u00a0impact of the proposed FoFA reforms on business and consumers.<\/p>\n

Responding to questioning by Senator Cormann, OBPR\u00a0Executive Director, Jason McNamara<\/strong>, acknowledged his department did not have\u00a0enough information about the impact on businesses and consumers and the cost benefit of key parts of FoFA for the Government to be able to make informed decisions.<\/p>\n

Mr McNamara detailed six areas where the OBPR did not have sufficient information to determine their impact both on businesses and consumers:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Renewal requirements for on-going financial advice fees to retail clients (opt-in)<\/li>\n
  2. The treatment of paid commissions on insurance products within the superannuation and life insurance products outside of superannuation<\/li>\n
  3. The treatment of soft dollar benefits<\/li>\n
  4. Access to advice<\/li>\n
  5. Replacement of the accountant’s exemption<\/li>\n
  6. The carve out of simple products<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    … time, or lack of it, was an important factor contributing to the OBPR being unable to develop satisfactory Regulatory Impact Statements<\/h6>\n

    The transcript of the exchange between Senator Cormann and Mr McNamara highlighted that time, or lack of it, was an important factor contributing to\u00a0the OBPR being unable to develop satisfactory Regulatory Impact Statements in relation to these six elements.<\/p>\n

    Senator Corman remarked: “It is not good enough for Bill Shorten to just press ahead with changes like Opt-In and his ill considered and ever changing proposal to ban commissions on risk insurance inside superannuation.\u00a0 He should not be allowed to press ahead with his vested interest agenda to make Australia the world leaders in financial advice red tape without going through proper process.”<\/p>\n

    The Senator also noted that the OBPR\u00a0has never even been asked to assess the\u00a0latest Government proposal to retrospectively impose additional annual fee disclosures requirements on financial advisers.<\/p>\n

    Senator Cormann said the least people should be able to expect is that the Government will comply with its own process requirements before pressing ahead with changes where the associated costs will ultimately be borne by consumers.\u00a0 He has called on the Government to commission a proper RIS which complies with its own best practice regulation requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Coalition has accused the Government of failing to properly assess the impact that its\u00a0proposed Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms will have on\u00a0businesses and consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-compliance-regulation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}