FOFA disallowance motion passes Senate

The federal opposition’s third attempt at blocking the government’s FOFA amendments has been successful, following this morning’s announcement of a policy backflip from Senators Jacqui Lambie and Ricky Muir.

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by Aleks Vickovich - November 19, 2014 15 comments

After a lengthy debate in the Senate today about whether or not the FOFA disallowance motion should be voted on this afternoon, the upper house ultimately upheld the motion 33 votes to 31.

Senator Dastyari said that the opposition and government should now go “back to the drawing board” and will take a “facilitative” approach to the issue.

ASIC will be taking a measured approach to FOFA compliance in coming months, Mr Dastyari said.

The vote effectively means that the lobbying efforts of the financial services associations and Coalition have not been successful and Labor's original FOFA laws will stand.

Meanwhile, Coalition Senator Eric Abetz said the disallowance motion will have a “devastating effect” on financial advisers, arguing the industry should have been given more notice.

“You would think common decency and common sense would require that this industry would be given more than 12 or 24 hours’ notice of a disallowance,” Mr Abetz said.

Senator Abetz described the change in policy positions by Senators Lambie and Muir as a “stunt…to ensure that the government’s program is derailed”.