Speaking in the House of Representatives on Wednesday in support of the Better Advice bill, Stephen Jones described the Coalition’s work in the financial sector as a “slow and painful trainwreck” due to a lack of reviews into professional and education standards.
“This is a constituency, if you took them as a whole, you’d probably say there’s more Liberal voters amongst [financial advisers] than Labor voters,” Mr Jones said.
“This is a constituency which the Coalition likes to think of as their own and they have treated them so appallingly not only in the design and implementation of professional standards, but in the ongoing incompetence in the administration of this profession.
“It is no wonder that members of this profession are standing up and questioning their lifelong commitment to Liberal party policies or Liberal Party governments.
“They are saying, ‘why are we backing these guys when at every step of the way they have sold us down the river and shown monumental incompetence and a lack of understanding of our profession and our industry and what is needed to properly regulate it…’”
Mr Jones’ comments come only a week after the chair of dealer group Synchron, Michael Harrison, said during a House of Representatives standing committee that FASEA’s lack of recognition of prior study is seeing older advisers move into mortgage broking.
“… they consider it less onerous, less regulated, they don’t have to worry and there’s no argument about where the commission is going to appear,” Mr Harrison said.
“I think that’s an issue. But I think also anyone over the age of about 55 who looks at going back to university to do a degree is saying ‘It’s all too hard, I’ll find another way.’”
Meanwhile, t was revealed late last month that costs allocated by ASIC to the advice sector have increased by more than $16 million, an increase of over 340 per cent in the last four years.
I don’t trust either side to get it right, especially when most of the advice they get is from people that haven’t done one day of financial planning.
Not to worry. Business is still going well for me. Have increased my fees by 40% in the last 12 months and just being selective about the clients I take on. If people can’t afford my fees, then they can complain to their local MP.
Agreed, we have given smaller clients a call and a letter to confirm we can’t provide advice or value at double or triple their old fee / commission, as we can only provide compliant advice at much higher fees.
[b]And our letter is directing them to get advice directly from their local Federal MP & or ASIC. [/b]
Given the Pollies and ASIC have jointly killed affordable advice, it’s only fair they get the calls about clients needing advice.
ASIC and the Labor MPs would advise them to put every spare cent into a union super fund.
The Liberal MPs would advise them to put every spare cent into real estate.
Ordinary consumers don’t stand much hope of getting affordable, professional, financial advice, when the regulators and legislators have such strong biases and vested interests.
Australians are now buying products from Super funds, and direct either from a Bank/online…. The majority will get their Advice from Accountants in a 15 minute tax return meeting…and Tik Tok will be the major source for most..a very small percentage will be able to have ongoing relationships with planners. I would suspect most planners to have about only 50 clients each paying $7,000 to $8,000. Once off transactional advice relationships have been killed by compliance. ASIC signaled this a Decade ago and Treasury also made mention of this during their review of FoFA. I hope the Advice Titanic can be turned around as Advisers having 50 clients is a doomed industry.
The Labor party said they would adopt “all” recommendations coming from the Royal Commission, hence Liberals folllow…so it’s not one party….Financial Advisers have been more so hoodwinked by the Financial Planning Association and misdirected representation….we were fooled into thinking they were advocates for Advisers when it’s turned out they were advocating for larger licensee’s controlled by product manufactures. More so it’s an unwillingness to upset those parties that delivered them members that has lead to poor outcomes for Australians and Advisers
Well said Michelle
I gave a letter to Jenny Wong when she was in Melbourne telling her how advisors were being treated by this present government I believe there was some mention in the above article sent the same letter to Jane Hume two months ago no reply who do I vote fore to protect our advisores
Perhaps, just perhaps, it has dawned on the Labor Party that the rapidly reducing number of life risk specialists means less amount of fully underwritten new business going into a statutory fund. Maybe the gutless CEOs of some of our life offices (still not quite prepared to demand a return to 80:20 ) have explained (slowly) to the industry funds that more self-employed life risk advisers actually means more strength in a statutory fund. You know, the kind of strength which may yet enable those same insurers to continue to offer non-underwritten, risky default cover on the overall strength of the fund. The next round of noise from APRA may well insist that a capital charge will be laid on life insurers unless they instigate procedures to underwrite default cover in super.
Wow, didn’t see those comments coming -some glimmer of hope maybe? Its political, but I don’t care anymore ! Well done Don Trapnell and Michael Harrison last week.
It’s interesting to note that a labor politician (Mr Jones) is flinging brickbats at the Liberals… from what I can recall was it not a Labor polly that started all the rot in the industry.
(No matter which party these guys are from… they all, ALL of them stink.)
Wasn’t Steven Jones proposing the total removal of risk commissions? Trusting the garble that comes out of Steven Jones mouth is like appointing Dracula to be in charge of the Blood Bank. The industry is getting smashed on both sides of Politics.
Hi Parliament is not called the cowards castle for nothing. Providing you don’t mislead the Parliament you can say anything you want and make promises that never will be kept. It full of hot air and freeloaders who act no better than a kindergarten garden full of spoilt, entitled, uneducated and ill disciplines three years old. I know a bit harsh on those future leaders of our nation. I am one those who thought stuff it and it time to leave the industry with my degrees and years of experience. Cheers
I’ll support the Lib Dems.
Less govt interference and easier to support than Labour who will prove to as evil as the current govt.
I wish I didn’t have to vote. I think all of them are manipulative to their cause and terrible leaders. Why my livelihood is in their hands annoys me immensely. I’m just under 55 and I don’t want to do a degree – fortunately I did it in my early 30’s phew. I also would not have wanted to do one when I was in my late 30’s having children. Who can study with young babies. Hard enough working. I only believe in new entrants having to meet these degrees. We, who have been planning for years, should have to and if that incurs a lead time until we all retire so be it. Politicians should not be messing with our lives when they are just saying and doing things to gain votes.
Wrong. Were we are now is a decade in the making. FOFA started coming together in 2011 and like any policy change it takes years to see the difference.
Both parties have spent 10 years heading in the wrong direction and both the industry and the consumers are worse off.
Wrong, the LNP have been in charge 75% of the time I have been an adviser for the last 22 years.
The LNP started the compliance heavy focus with FSRA back in 2001.
And it has been an ever increasing exponential rise into the stratosphere of BS REGS and Red Tape Costs.
ASIC are a complete nightmare out of control. With the likes of Ms Above My Pay Grade Press. But the LNP have allowed this ASIC rot to fester and even more so Frydenberg has encouraged it for the last 8 years.
[b]The LNP have a lot to answer for over the last 8 years of the Frydenberg led kill adviser catastrophe.
The LNP have a lot to answer for the last 20 years since FSRA.
The LNP must be held accountable for 75% of the Adviser world over compliance cost and confusion. [/b]
Just don’t get it. Hanging on LNP despite being betrayed. The advisers were betrayed by the current government. Or better, actually all the people who need advice. At the same time billions are funnelled to the donors by shady policies and approvals. In the end it boils down to the lesser of the two evils and currently the incompetence of the coalition on many fronts is so apparent. Would you invest in a company that has a dysfunctional board and executive team. No, you would run for the exit.
Of course Mr Jones is a politician, but he is stating the very obvious and we still blindly follow the LNP. I call that the Lemming mentality.
Hmmmmm. Crocodile tears. Wont pass the pub test,
classic bait and switch – this whole orchestrated charade was set up by the left side of politics – ISN, and Unions – the man is delusional. But right in the fact that the LNP have been led down the path of all destroying the business model of IFA’s.
Another wolf dressed up as a lamb!
where’s the code of ethics for politicians??
and the education requirements.
If the ALP wins office, he will appointed Minister for Industry Super
Just like Bill Shorten who rode on the coattails of FoFA to the leadership of the opposition. The current candidate will have noticed.
GOLD MEDAL BACKFLIP!!!
Typical politician – FULL of lies and B!LLSH@T
Nah, just saying what the audience wants to hear.
Said the same Mr Jones who suggested fee for service only for life insurance advice…
The penny has finally dropped. There are lots of votes for Labor if they play their cards right. Looking forward to seeing favourable policies. It won’t take much. The anger is immense
No there are not. Not everyone is a turkey voting for Christmas.
Those 7 upvotes – does that mean we have 7 Labor party employees on this forum?
Not from me….neither of these self-righteous AND self-serving parties are worthy of my vote. Both have been infiltrated by grubs.
There definitely are not lots of votes for Labor.. You have to be kidding yourself.. I’ll give you a couple thousand at most.
The Morrison / Frydenberg Liberals have been far, far worse than the Rudd & Gillard Labor years.
Bring on the biff.
Good – I’m getting the popcorn. Your move Jane Hume/Josh.
Her “move” will be to extend the FARCE exam another 12 months at the end of this year. Life companies are screaming at them as they’re losing advisers and business on a floodgate scale. Serious ramifications for life coys of something isn’;t done to retain LIFE advisers – this extermination rally of advisers by the pollies has gone too far and will cause systemic ruptures for life companies unless something is done to get business back through the door. Simply won’t happen without MANY more advisers. They’re idiots as they’ve left it too late. The good older advisers, like me, have sold and left or, like me, have committed to leave by year end after 2, 3, or 4+ decades helping protect Aussies. Watch this space – the earthquakes for the life industry have only just begum to rumble. How stupid of these cretins to force risk advisers to sit wholly inappropriate exams that will do ZERO to help them look after their clients better. It borders on criminal what these unqualified politicians are forcing small business people to do. It is certainly immoral.
They don’t have to move. Voters don’t give a care about financial planners. The election issues are Covid, the economy, Covid, international boarders, Covid and unemployment. Covid will also be up there.
your right but they do care about small business
What do you think financial advisers are telling their clients when they hand them 5 documents to sign and a big fee increase? What do you think we are telling our clients when we force them to attend a review meeting at a time which is not convenient to them or harass them over getting paperwork back to us or in some cases cut off our service even though they want to remain clients. I’ll give you a tip – it’s not the same reassuring pro-Coalition message clients are used to hearing from us.
I think if you start telling your clients how to vote (or what religion to be, or where to send their kids to school, etc.) they won’t be your clients for much longer. The last thing clients want to hear is about financial planners complaining about their lot in life. They don’t care. They are paying for a service, not to hear their financial planner whine on. I think financial planners massively overestimate their influence on their clients.
I think you’re wrong…
I don’t.
Funny
Stephen Jones, I get that you are a politician and love slinging mud, but we will only take you seriously if you put forward any sensible alternatives.
Like not threatening to abolish life insurance commissions when elected!