In a letter to members, AIOFP executive director Peter Johnston said the announcement last week that Sequoia director and InterPrac chief executive Garry Crole was funding six months of AIOFP membership of 400 InterPrac advisers was a positive for the profession.
“Advisers are proficient at managing client monetary capital, but managing their own political capital is another skill,” Mr Johnston said.
“The recent 99.5 per cent acceptance of AIOFP membership by the demographically diverse InterPrac adviser cohort is a clear signal that the ‘divide and rule’ tactics employed by the institutions in the 1990s to polarise and politically control the advice community is coming to an end.
“We would have expected around 50 per cent acceptance pre-2019 federal election, 99.5 per cent is a game-changing outcome.”
According to Mr Johnston, the previous state of “war” between the institutionally aligned and the independent advisers “provided the perfect platform for the institutionally aligned associations to prance into Canberra with legislative options while a disparate advice community were in disarray”.
“This environment set the scene for Canberra to conclude that the advice community were a ‘rabble’ and they will seek direction from the institutionally aligned associations,” he said.
“This is precisely how the LIF/FASEA legislation easily passed both Houses in Canberra with the blessing of FSC/FPA/AFA supposedly ‘representing the industry’.
“These anti-adviser outcomes can be largely blamed on advisers not managing their own political capital efficiently. Being a member of any association gives their management and board the imprimatur to use your political capital to justify and back their decisions, whatever they may be. The FPA/AFA were not only taking member fees but spending the members’ political capital (essentially against them) to put LIF/FASEA in place.”
Mr Johnston argued that this should serve as a warning to financial advisers that they should steer clear of associations that “don’t represent your views or objectives”, taking particular aim at the Joint Association Working Group (JAWG).
“The JAWG conglomeration is a classic example,” he said.
“The next 12 months must be used by the advice community to get bipartisan approval for the key issues before the next election – this starts with backing those who back your profession.”
Mr Johnston said that the recently formed Independent Financial Counsel (IFC), comprised of the AIOFP and the Finance Brokers Association Australasia (FBAA), is the answer.
“Naturally, we will argue that the AIOFP board and management has led the way with representing advisers in Canberra, the legislative scoreboard does not lie,” he said.
“We also see the alliance with the FBAA enhancing our influence in Canberra and opening up commercial opportunities for both memberships.”
Give me a bucket. Lets see how many members are left when the advisers need to pony up. Dont value something you get for free.
It has been on my mind to join the AIOFP as the FAAA has not produced any real results – basically there has been a War between Advisers and Product Providers for over 10 years and the product providers seem to be winning on all measures that I can see. Hard to defend the FAAA really – so I reckon it is time for Financial Planners to get behind another Association – continuing with the FAAA and expecting a different result seems pointless.
All the way with AIOFP.
I do agree with Peter’s point of view around the continued development and repeated redevelopment of regulations within the financial services industry. The past approach to regulation seems to lead to just more and more reregulation and not necessarily in the right direction?
Advisers are kidding themselves if they think this is going to make any difference at all. While I didn’t agree with the total abolishment of commissions for investments, there is exactly 0% chance that this can be undone by AIOFP or anyone else. Advisers should save their money and focus on improving their businesses than wasting it on supporting these lost causes.
Just my 2 cents.
15 years of garbage out of Canberra – FOFA, LIF, RC, ASIC, Treasury, APRA etc. – no meaningful change, still waiting, all talk no action. Never in history has an Industry been treated so appallingly disgraceful. And still it marches on relentlessly. Just vote them out and give someone else a go.
It would’ve been a better out come for us advisers if there was one representative body. We could then hold the feet of that body to the fire and demand proactive solutions to the mess in which we constantly find ourselves.
Could Peter Johnston just STOP with this divisive rhetoric that plays into the hands of the government? How the JAWG could be accused of having an “agenda” is beyond me. Oh, and wasn’t it Peter who was encouraging us all to vote Labor before the last election? Look how well THAT turned out!
Actually, I am a conservative so lean heavily towards Libs, but when current finance minister Stephen Jones said he would not require advisers with 10+ years experience to get a degree, that was the first positive thing to happen for me from all of this relentless destruction of our industry in 7 years!!! Of course stupid cohort opposite said they would do the same, yeah well too little to late!!
Jones said he would and he did! It was common sense seeing that no other profession globally has ever retrospectively forced those with the most experience to return to Uni orvlose their careers.
This “hot mess” as Jones put it is andhas been disgusting and is only 15% fixed. Please get on with QAR and removal of red tape including the annual Opt In as we are the only country in the world where this happens, terrible outcome for all pricing out millions of people that need our help.
FBAA