In questions on notice to the regulator, Senate economics committee member Gerard Rennick asked how much it had spent on its Consultation Paper 332 on advice affordability, if it was planning to release submissions made in the consultation process and if ASIC would be willing to supply the submissions to the committee.
The regulator said it “[had] not published, and has no plans to publish” submissions made in the review, citing privacy concerns for those who had made submissions.
“Some of the submissions to CP 332 were provided to ASIC in-confidence, and must be treated consistently with ASIC’s obligations under section 127 of the ASIC Act, which sets out ASIC’s confidentiality obligations,” ASIC said.
“Many of the submissions were made by individuals, namely individual financial advisers. These individuals may not welcome publication of their submissions and review of their comments by their employers and others.”
However in a communication to members, AIOFP executive director Peter Johnston said the regulator’s refusal to release the submissions was “preposterous” and likely to be “backed by certain politicians who don’t want any more bad news before the election”.
“The most popular view as to why ASIC will not release information on 466 public submissions about achieving affordable advice for consumers is the submissions are heavily critical of ASIC’s role,” Mr Johnston said.
“ASIC are no longer just the police, they are judge, jury and executioner around a number of issues including affordable advice for consumers. Unfortunately the political process over the past eight years has allowed this to happen.
“ASIC do not have the street smarts, experience or inclination to make things easier for consumers – this has to change.”
The regulator’s response to Senator Rennick’s questions, published in June, pointed to a summary document it would release outlining key barriers to affordable advice identified by the submissions.
However the document, released in July, was scant in its detail around the issues identified and next steps following the consultation, which attracted one of the largest submission volumes of any ASIC review.
While the regulator is accountable to a number of parliamentary committees including the Senate economics committee, when asked by Senator Rennick if it would release the submissions to the committee, ASIC warned the senator off making a formal request for the documents.
“ASIC has already provided responses to questions on notice which are publicly available and include high-level summaries of the issues raised in submissions. On this basis, we are of the view that the committee would be better assisted by this summary information than 466 submissions,” the regulator said.
Mr Johnston added that the AIOFP was happy to receive and publish submissions from any advisers that had participated in the consultation.
ASIC cannot afford for the truth to come out as it is complicit in sending financial planning businesses under. It does not understand the businesses or those that seek advice.
I personally put the blame at the feet of ASIC. I stand by that position and I also believe ASIC have screwed up financial planning, they know it but don’t know how to fix what they did.
I want to see which academics and “consumer groups” ASIC paid to make submissions.
the lot of them just don’t have the faintest idea what they are doing and once you truly accept that then everything makes more sense…ASIC like the pollies have an anti advice industry mindset and they approach us with that mentality. we don’t just need better governance, we need a serious review of the regulatory framework and approach…
I can’t see any good reason why an adviser wouldn’t want the public to know thw reasons for hifh advice costs. It is therefore Asic and politicians who don’t want the public to know that they are the primary reason for this. Talk about a conflict of interest.
My main submission was to get rid of dealerships who are our biggest costs, so I probably don’t want that published. Id be ok with it being published if they took my name off though
You know you can rid yourself of your dealer group? Get your own licence. It’s much simpler and cheaper than the self interested dealer groups would have you believe.
Affordable advice is simple if not complicated by a regulator full of inexperienced, underqualified, power hungry public servants – just look to other countries where it’s successful. Get rid of Opt-Ins, FDSes, SoAs over 10 pages, RoAs and Execution Only documentation and replace the lot with File Notes, Emails/Texts to/from clients, and simple “receipts” where clients are shown what’s being done, the simple pros & cons of doing it, and the costs. Done. But then this will do many in the offices of the regulators out of work, and justify a reduced budget also won’t it, so we’ll just continue being the laughing stock of financial services worldwide.
This is how it should be done. The barriers to entry into the industry are high, as well as the ongoing education, so it should, theoretically, make the process of advising much less onerous than it is now.
That’s exactly what was in my submission. Probably plenty of others too. Now you see why they won’t publish them
There is not enough accountability in Asic, whether it’s our part or other parts of financial services, they are immature public lawyers with no connection to the outcome hiding behind their own Act (ahem .. conflict of interest ?)
Time for this Federal Govt to be sacked, tolerating baloney like this. No Fed agency has the ability to withhold items under FOI legislation. This is simply corrupt.
ASIC are burying the submissions because they don’t want to make the necessary changes to fix the financial advice crisis in Australia. The collapse of the industry is the exact outcome ASIC wanted all along. They wanted it so bad, they were willing to disgrace themselves with misleading research (eg. REP413 promoted as representative of the profession , despite being based on a small sample of advisers believed to be at high risk of churning), political lobbying (eg. the exam), meddling in the Royal Commission (eg. consumers don’t need financial advice) and cash for submissions to influence FASEA (eg. Insane changes to Standard 3 beyond anything required by other professions). The rancid stench of ASIC’s rotten culture grows stronger by the day.
At the end of the day ASIC believes everyone should just be in AustralianSuper and get your advice from Google or the Accountant during a 10 minute tax return. They have very little understanding of what we actually do and this is highlighted when ASIC during their fees for no service report, defined Advice as producing a Record of Advice.
This just shows the total arrogance of ASIC which seems to think it is able to ignore information requests from parliamentary committees to which it is clearly responsible. To actually warn a senator not to make requests of this information smacks of total contempt for the parliament.If we as advisers or licensees took that approach with ASIC we would see the full force of an out of control regulator come down upon us. It is past time for the government to take a big broom to ASIC to clean out those who think they out of the reach of the elected government ministers.
I’m probably naïve, but surely the call to action here is to the groups who made submissions, to consider posting them publicly?
They could EASILY disclose without the names of those who submitted – that would ensure enough confidentiality – the question to me is whether ScoMo and Jos Fry have the gumption to get them to disclose.
Yeh and do you think the 3 Paid for Comment $150,000 ASIC research submissions will make their so called research public themselves ?
Advisers paid for this research but ASIC won’t show us who they paid this time to screw us.
Spot on Peter – and well done on having courage to put your name to your comment unlike most others here
…and put a giant target on our backs? No thanks Peter. I saw what they did to McMaster. This is not a fair, transparent and honest regulator we are dealing with.
Peter is absolutely 100% correct ASIC have gone AWOL AND THIS IS AFFECTING LIVES OF CLIENTS ADVISERS AND EMPLOYEES OF PRACTISES without any justification. Its about time we had a royal commission into the royal commission and ASIC.
So, there is nothing to see here, move along. How do you know there is nothing to see here? Cos we TOLD you.
Now try and pull rubbish that if ASIC come knocking at your door.
Justice must not only be done, it must be SEEN to be done.
By refusing to make submissions available, anonymously if need be, ASIC is basically saying it is answerable to no-one.
When a government bureaucracy lacks transparency it is clear they are not on the side of the Australian public.
Ditto for the government which allows them to get away with it. #JoshFrydenberg and #JaneHume should be ashamed of themselves.
Who cares abut shame ‘Fed-Up’ when you’re ripping people off to the tune of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars each year and getting away with it. The recent article about Josh Frydenberg and his partner in crime Martin Codina shows these people don’t care about the people they’re meant to serve and protect; it’s all about them now and what they can get out of this. ASIC’s key management are no different in any way whatsoever.
Their “shame filter” broke a long time ago…
to late the ship has sailed
What is ASIC trying to hide? They could just redact the names on the submissions.
That might justify in some small way the fees we are forced to pay!
ASIC still corrupt as always from the looks.
Keeping the lid on.