On Thursday, ifa broke the news that Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones will be unveiling the government’s response to the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) to a small audience of superannuation fund CEOs and senior industry executives on Tuesday morning at an event organised by the peak body for the super industry ASFA.
Speaking at the ifa’s Adviser Innovation Summit in Sydney on Thursday, Ms Levy said that while she thought she “had an idea” about how the minister was feeling, the current circumstances surrounding the release of the response have left her with a strong sense of unease about what lies ahead.
“I am very nervous about what’s coming,” Ms Levy told a full room of advisers.
“I thought I had an idea … Now I’m seeing how it’s being released, I do think it’s largely going to be about super … It’s a funny place to announce it though, to the CEOs of super funds.”
As per the ASFA invitation sent to CEOs and senior executives, and seen by ifa, the intimate room of high-level managers will be the first to hear the government’s QAR response.
ifa also reached out to ASFA where a spokesperson confirmed that the event would indeed serve as the platform for the minister to unveil the response.
Minister Jones has previously been criticised by advisers for enjoying a seemingly close alliance with super funds.
Speaking at an Industry Super Australia event earlier this year, the minister gave a firm indication that he is leaning towards heeding Michelle Levy’s recommendation to up the role funds play in the financial advice space — a proposal that has received a frosty reception from advisers.
“There are 16,000 licensed financial advisers in the country, so the numbers don’t square. So, we’ve got to find a way to deliver information and advice to members who are approaching retirement,” Mr Jones said at the time.
“Whether you like it or not, one of the first phone numbers that they call is their superannuation fund. At the moment, law that has been passed by the previous parliaments, supported by me, puts an obligation on funds to put in place a strategy for their members for their retirement phase. And at the very same moment, we put in all of these obstacles, which make it almost impossible for the funds to do anything about that. So, I’m keen on squaring that off,” he explained.
This, however, is not the first time Mr Jones has dropped such hints. In March, he confirmed he was seriously considering allowing entities other than relevant providers — professional advisers currently registered as such — to provide advice.
As part of the QAR, the reviewer, Ms Levy, recommended the removal of obstacles that prevent super funds from providing more retirement advice to their members.
Under her proposal, super funds would be able to offer limited personal advice while adhering to the good advice duty. However, murmurs have indicated that minister Jones is not particularly supportive of Ms Levy’s good advice duty.
Touching on this on Thursday, Ms Levy said that failure to adopt the duty would put super funds in a “really, really difficult position”.
“I think they are already with that intra-fund advice because of that issue they’ve got between what can be conflicting duties.”
Ms Levy has previously highlighted the existing gap in the law regarding the conflict that arises when a trustee is tasked with balancing their duty to act in the best interests of both individual members and the collective members. According to her, the implementation of the good advice duty serves as a solution to this issue.
The minister has yet to answer ifa’s request for comment.
If Minister Jones & his colleagues thinks he can ignore and treat the Professional Advice Industry with the same level of contempt as that from previous Governments, he is in for a reckoning. Myself and pretty much every other adviser I have spoken to have had enough of being treated like lambs to the slaughter.
Can someone please explain why releasing crucial industry information is appropriate to release to only part of the industry? Surely a more appropriate way would be to publicly release it and then if you want to have a round table with some big wigs do it.
Would be like the RBA telling the big 4 banks of next months rate decision a month before every other player
Nothing will change for advisers. Their will be carve outs for phone operators at all superfunds including ISA (Union Super Funds). The rationale will be – You guys hold yourselves out to be advisers. Phone operators don’t. You couldn’t make this shite up.
Shameful actions from the ALP and Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones in being so blatantly beholden to ‘Big Super’. Vertical integration is back with a vengeance.
Nervous because she can longer sprook her Banking favored services to the industry and finally become officially irrelevant?
Does everyone agree with the AIOFP’s comments today that advisers now need to contribute $10 per week each for the next 2 years towards a fighting fund so we can raise $16.6 million to influence politicians at the next Federal election? This level of money will then allow us to compete with the influence of the Industry Funds.
The AIOFP is a joke.
Agree.
I would argue the majority of the Industry Funds want the same thing. Advisers on the other hand can have very opposite views. Take the education standards, some want to be excluded from the requirements under an experience pathway, others want everyone to complete course. Who would decide how the funds are used?
It’s not close to what Industry Funds gives the ALP and unless we can offer them board positions after they retire it doesn’t matter anyway. Corruption at its finest
Wasn’t it the AIOFP recommending to advisers to vote in labor?
lol – that’s worked so well in the past – multiple associations with competing agendas. As an adviser I’ll save my $10 thanks – I’ll probably need it
you are kidding yes – they have their fingers firmly ensconced in rivers of gold – what is declared is only a tiny fraction of goods and services in kind.
Goodbye Labor, goodbye Jones, seriously fed up and had enough.
This simply confirms the view that the minister has no respect or appreciation for the industry as a whole and is simply a sycophant of large pools of money, which ultimately will be targeted by the Government to fund their abominable spending…
Defniitely provides a financial advantage to them to have the information first and be able to take critical business decisions immediatey adn prior to the rest of the industry knowing whats happening
This is nuts, it’s supposed to be about ways financial advice can be delivered more efficiently and cost effectively and he’s presenting to super fund CEO’s. Wow!!
The only thing I’m nervous about is intrafund advice being extended at the cost of retail advisers, who are being unfairly & systematically decimated by Fed legislation.
Of course that’s going to happen.
Any surprise Labor is in the pocket of union super funds?
Even a person with no Advising experience acknowledges that Jones’ location to announce the overdue response is not appropriate. Particularly after charging advisers nationally to tell them to wait. It’s beyond inappropriate its the actions of a conflicted prick
What is Jones so scared about to sit on his hands for 12 months and not speak publicly? It’s a genuinely conflicted disgrace.