Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announced a new-look shadow ministry on Tuesday afternoon, finally filling the gap left in the financial services portfolio following Stuart Robert’s retirement from politics last year.
While Angus Taylor retained his position as shadow treasurer, the assistant treasurer and shadow financial services minister will now be Luke Howarth.
That may not be a name familiar to many within the sector, so who exactly is Luke Howarth?
Having been first elected to the seat of Petrie in Queensland in 2013, Howarth had made his way into an assistant minister role by 2019.
Under the final term of the Morrison government, he served as assistant minister for community housing, homelessness and community services for 18 months, and then as assistant minister for youth and employment services.
In opposition, he shifted across to the defence portfolio, serving under Andrew Hastie as both shadow minister for defence industry and defence personnel.
Not a lot of financial services experience so far in his political career.
Despite this, Dutton spruiked the new shadow minister’s understanding that “small business is the backbone of the Australian economy”.
Dutton has announced that Luke Howarth will serve as both shadow assistant treasurer and shadow financial services minister.
“He has previously run a family business before entering Parliament and has a strong understanding of the financial pressures many Australians are currently experiencing under the government’s cost-of-living crisis,” the Opposition Leader said in a statement.
“Luke will bring his strong command of retail economics to this important role.”
This family business experience Dutton referred to was in a family-owned pest control business based in Redcliffe, Queensland, which he bought into and joined as director following his departure from Sony in 2001.
The ifa readership quickly identified that among the qualifications listed on the Parliament website is a Certificate III in pest management, noting that this could come in handy in Canberra.
Among his other notable certifications listed on the Parliament site are a black belt in judo, a scuba diving qualification, and a diploma of business.
Howarth made headlines a few times over his time in Parliament, notably when, early in his tenure as homelessness minister, he expressed his desire to “put a positive spin” on the homelessness crisis.
Facebook comments extolling the virtues of pork-barrelling in the lead-up to the last federal election also got people talking.
“I pork barrel my electorate all the time, that’s my job to deliver as much as possible for our area,” Howarth wrote on Facebook in response to an accusation of pork barrelling.
“You will see me deliver more as well for local community groups and infrastructure.”
Not backing down, he told Daily Mail Australia at the time: “I’ll never apologise for getting money for my electorate.”
Perhaps he will bring this same level of verve to advocating for his financial services portfolio.
For its part, the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) welcomed the new appointment in a statement on Wednesday morning, noting a desire to engage with the new shadow minister.
“We congratulate Luke Howarth on his appointment as shadow assistant treasurer and shadow minister for financial services,” FAAA chief executive Sarah Abood said.
“This is a critically important portfolio at a time when more Australians than ever need access to high quality and affordable financial advice.
“We look forward to engaging with the shadow minister on the many current regulatory matters in our space, including the Quality of Advice Review reforms and addressing the escalating costs to provide financial advice.”
Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) executive director Peter Johnston expressed a similar sentiment.
“We welcome Luke to our industry and look forward to discussing the important issues that will lower the cost of advice for consumers and allow our profession to flourish,” Johnston told ifa.
It’s too early to tell what the focus for the new shadow minister will be and where he will fall on the issues impacting advisers. However, if he falls in line with the existing rhetoric from the opposition, a full implementation of the QAR and utilising superannuation to buy a house will be at the forefront of his messaging.
Democracy101 – it’s the citizens’ job to assess the competence of their leaders prior to being elected
This bloke is over qualified given he was a former pesty…!
The bad part of all this is that we shouldn’t be held to ransom by any of the Pollies if they did their job right and acted in the best interests of all of the stakeholders, not just their ISF buddies.
Better than the current clown that calls backpackers “qualified advisers” . The only qualification and experience requirements to be a Finance Minister for the Labor party is that you can take Directions from AustralianSuper.
An indictment on the Australian political system. No qualifications, no experience yet may decide on the future policies & legistation that govern the delivery of FP advice in the future.
Doesnt matter as they wont get in anyway.
The WA Liberal Party has recently preselected Tom White, to run for Curtin against the Teal Kate Chaney. If he gets up, he will be one of the most experienced business MPs Canberra has had for decades. He has successfully run UBER in at least 3 separate Asian nations and would probably make an excellent Prime Minister. So there is some talent finally creeping back into the ranks; making up for the O’Dwyer, Hume, Frydenberg & Morrison disasters we have been lumbered with.
Luke Howarth is pro-SMSFs and he is favours paying off your house over subsidising the Labor Party with donations from Industry Super Funds. He looks OK to me, compared to his predecessors. Some might like Angus Taylor to be the Shadow Minister, but if Taylor isn’t prepared to get his head around our industry issues, we are better off without him. Howarth also took a principled public stand against grossly unfair employment mandates during covid, as a real Liberal would have. So like Dutton, he is being underestimated I suspect.
Good points – but I will never ever again vote for any Liberal. Not a Labor voter so I’m looking for other alternative – or simply to disrupt.
Bragg would have receive my vote, my families and my undecided clients
I can assure you your undecided clients aren’t going to give two rats about who you want them to vote for
Should have been Bragg
Can Luke Howarth fix the “hot mess”?
The real question should be: Does MP Jones have the qualifications to be an effective FS Minister? And has he delivered effective reform???
So while Advisers need every qualification under the sun and then some to work as a Financial Adviser (even many pieces of paper that are absolutely worthless to actually providing advice and solutions to clients in the practical sense), ASIC Delegates need NO financial qualifications nor experience (and the several I’ve met have no understanding and are lacking intelligence in a practical sense) AND Politicians need pretty much nothing except the backing of another Politician who has pretty much nothing in the way of experience, knowledge or qualifications? Seems fair – especially when we’re the ones essentially hiring (or at least paying) them.
I think many of the Pollies have a legal back ground.
And bugger all to no knowledge of the specific area of Govt they are put in charge of / minister of.
More to the point of Canberra making rules for thers and not themselves.
Why do Financial Advisers (40 hrs pa) have to do 4 times the annual CPD as Lawyers (10 hrs pa) ?
Why do Financial Advisers (9 hrs Ethics pa) have to do 9 times the annual Ethics Specific CPD as Lawyers (1 hr Ethics pa) ?
What a rort set up by Pollie Lawyers.
Given a huge number of Pollies are Lawyers, it would seem they legislate very lightly on themselves as Lawyers v’s Financial Advisers
All Australian lawyers are required to complete a minimum of 10 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) each year.
So Pollies who are mostly Lawyers set their own laws at ¼ of the CPD time waste for their profession v Advisers.
Including at least one (1) CPD unit in each of the following compulsory fields:, Practice management and business skills, Professional skills, and Substantive law1.
Ethics and professional responsibility = ETHICS = 1 freaking hr per annum.
Can anyone explain why the huge difference ??????????????
Really? After all the LNP did to this industry?
Well said Sarah and Peter – politcally placating!!….should be an interesting engagement with one bereft of any understanding re our industry!!
The former Liberal Govts under both Turnbull and Morrison did nothing but destroy the small business of Financial Services.
And then we had Malcolm Turncoat claiming his Govt was the ” Govt of small business” !!
I have never heard such utter claptrap from the ego driven mouth of a pretender.
He should have remained a member of the Labor Party from when he was in the beginning.
Finally we had Scott Morrison, who had no interest whatsoever in regard to the plight of Financial Services because he was always going to be looked after by the taxpayer and his God.
The Liberal Party was effectively complicit in the overseeing of destruction of small business Financial Services and delivered the most cruel, ineffectual and politically motivated attack against business owners who the vast majority had been Liberal voters their entire lives….because they believed in free enterprise in a free market economy.
They have a very very long way to go to make up ground and it will be a monumental task to be forgiven or trusted at all.
Good luck.
100% agree, but has Jones & Albo delivered on their promises to fix the “hot mess”? Labor is just as bad as the Liberals.
Well said.
No, Labor has not fixed the “hot mess”. Why on earth would they? Industry Super now appears to be in a situation where any competition from AMP and the Bank has been eliminated, Financial Planner not aligned to Industry Super are covered in red tape (those that are left) and it also appears they will be able to deliver product advice without any red tap – and collective charging fees to subsidise the advice is now encouraged – not the conflict leading to consumer detriment it was? How community expectation have changed?
And the question remains, why not Bragg who has vast experience in this area???