Mulino reassures DBFO still on the table

Much of the advice profession has essentially given up on the promised Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms after seeing no movement on the legislation since trance 1.5, or so it has been dubbed, was announced by then Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones in March 2025. 

In the more than 430 days since, the profession has welcomed Minister Mulino to the role and seen the mess unfold following the Shield and First Guardian collapses, which has left the minister in a difficult position to argue for easing legislation in the financial advice sector. 

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However, speaking at the SIAA conference in Melbourne last week, Mulino said they are still working on delivering the DBFO reforms but suggested that dealing with the CSLR has also caused a lag. 

“When I came into this role, there was already a set of issues around financial advice, some of which had been underway for quite some time, such as the next branch of the DBFO, but there were also some outstanding issues, such as education pathways for advisers. 
 

“What happened soon after I came into this role is that we saw the Shield and First Guardian collapses, which raised issues around consumer protection in that context, but also then raised related issues around the sustainability of the CSLR, the burden of the CSLR on different sectors. 

“Ultimately, a lot of these issues require attention simultaneously, and what I, and the government, and the department tried to do, is to examine those issues in a holistic way.” 

The key, he explained, is taking a holistic approach to the legislation in order to tackle what are clearly significant issues, all of which are in need of addressing. 

“We really are trying to think about these issues in a way which we take into account the fact that there are these independencies and that’s why we’ve issued a whole series of discussion papers.” 

The discussion papers he’s referring to are those covering professional indemnity (PI) insurance and managed investment scheme (MIS), as well as one on the proposed education reforms and the three related to the CSLR for which consultation closed on 22 May. 

While dealing with the CSLR and all its related challenges has become a central focus, Mulino flagged that “the DBFO is underway also, in parallel”. 

“I’m really prioritising this set of reforms as a whole, and this will be a very important part of 2026,” the minister added. 

One of the key challenges for the minister, particularly in the current environment, is balancing the various trade-offs that come with making legislative change like the DBFO. 

“I just want to say that we are trying to do this holistically, and we are trying to acknowledge there are trade-offs. There are trade-offs in terms of consumer protection and choice. There are also potential trade-offs, in terms of the regulation of the provision of advice versus access to advice, and we’re trying to balance those trade-offs while providing a holistic solution.” 

And even though the task of wrangling advice reform has become “a bigger piece of overall work than [he’d] originally imagine”, Mulino remains positive he can achieve a fair outcome in due course. 

“I think the opportunity there is that we’ll be able to progress on a number of fronts in a way that is coherent, and that’s very much the goal.”