A new poll has revealed that the Coalition is now leading on a two-party preferred basis, with 52 per cent support compared to Labor’s 48 per cent.
The poll, run by The Australian Financial Review/Freshwater Strategy, showed on Monday there has been a 1 percentage point swing towards Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his team since the previous month, indicating a shift in voter sentiment and a tightening of the political contest.
This poll mirrors ifa’s recent, smaller survey, which highlighted a significant preference for the Coalition’s candidate for financial services minister over Labor’s current minister.
Among ifa’s 517 voters, 43.9 per cent were undecided, but 240 (46.4 per cent) favoured Luke Howarth as their preferred candidate for financial services minister, compared to just 50 (9.7 per cent) who supported the incumbent, Stephen Jones.
This big gap highlights a clear preference for the Coalition’s candidate over the incumbent, who, despite initial hype, has yet to live up to the promises made to the profession.
On the other hand, Howarth is a relatively unknown figure in advice circles, and as an opposition member, his role primarily involves critiquing the government’s missteps – a task that has been relatively straightforward of late.
Speaking at a Financial Services Council (FSC) event in Sydney in July, Howarth criticised the government for its sluggish pace on Quality of Advice Review (QAR) reforms, and voiced doubts about the effectiveness of the forthcoming tranche two.
The shadow minister made it clear that the Coalition believes the government should have jumped on Michelle Levy’s final QAR report with both feet, insisting that they would swiftly push for the needed reforms without wasting time reinventing the wheel.
But how qualified and trustworthy is Howarth, really?
Having been first elected to the seat of Petrie in Queensland in 2013, Howarth had made his way into an assistant minister role by 2019.
Under the final term of the Morrison government, he served as assistant minister for community housing, homelessness and community services for 18 months, and then as assistant minister for youth and employment services.
In opposition, he shifted across to the defence portfolio, serving under Andrew Hastie as both shadow minister for defence industry and defence personnel.
Despite a political background that’s light on financial services, Dutton earlier this year touted the new shadow minister’s keen grasp of one key truth: “small business is the backbone of the Australian economy”.
But Howarth isn’t exactly free of controversies. Namely, he made headlines a few times over his time in Parliament, notably when, early in his tenure as homelessness minister, he expressed his desire to “put a positive spin” on the homelessness crisis.
While it’s too soon to gauge the new shadow minister’s focus or stance on issues affecting advisers, whispers suggest he might not be as clued up on financial advice as he first seems. But one thing is clear – Stephen Jones has had his chance, and it remains to be seen whether he deserves another shot to fix the “hot mess” he’s left behind.
The Libs got us into this mess and the ALP are keeping advisers there. It is a sad day when the most supportive politician for financial planners is Pauline Hansen.
It’s interesting that the electorate’s loss of faith in Labor has mirrored advisers’ loss of faith in Jones. It suggests Jones’ lying and incompetence is far from isolated behaviour within the government.
Stepehn Jones will go down as the most biased Financial Services minister since Bill Shorten. Both hel hands with the industry funds and banks and continue down the road of driving this indiistry into the dust so the only comanies that can afford to run and AFSL will be the big end of town whomwill tell consumers how much they can earn in thir super, where they will invest it and provide no detail of why or when it is invested as ‘you don’t need to know that we will look after you and charge you low fees to do nothing for you!!’ What an absolute frce
Stephen Jones appears to be doing exceptionally well considering his vacuous promises and empty bag of tricks.
He’s like the sideshow clown who plays his tricks, promises every kid a prize but then with his sad clown face on tips his bag upside down only to disappoint the crowd.
Labor are pouring all their attention into addressing financial scams.
Whilst this is incredibly needed and important to try and reduce the huge amount of money leaving this country, it is also politically convenient leading up to an election as it is seen the Govt is looking after their people.
There are votes in this strategy.
It’s just like the Royal Commission response stating they are going to be ridding the country of ( yes, the most popular media term out there…”DODGY” Advisers).
Again, this is entirely politically motivated and designed to paint the picture that the Govt is fighting the “baddies” and looking after people’s best interest when in fact, it is just a popularity game.
My prediction ? There will be no fix to this industry inside the next 3 years.
Nah – Make that five years, if ever
We have seen this movie before. It’s a rerun, of a rerun, of a rerun.
Some of my colleagues out there have very short memories of coalition Ministers for financial services.And the last one from the coalition is still there in the Senate, rabbiting on about how new homebuyers should be able to access their superannuation for a deposit. She has never acknowledged that every measure introduced by the Howard government to assist “first home buyers” immediately resulted in increases in the price of homes of either three or four times the amount of government assistance.
And as Alan Kohler pointed out on Q&A the other night, the first home buyer would be gambling on whether or not the money he ultimately will put back into his super when the property is sold will have been subject to any “improvement” from investment return compared to what he might have obtained if the money had been left in his super fund. As he says the proposition creates a new investment market and in reality it just kicks the housing accessibility problem down the road
Here’s the lesson to be learned about Minister for financial services, in any government coalition or labor. Firstly they have rarely had any experience in financial advice, other than than being ex- bankers and coming with bank culture i.e. Hockey,O’Dwyer and Frydenberg were all ex-bankers of some type. Ms Hume worked for Australian super. Mr Jones was a lawyer acting for Industry fund super.
The coalition ministers were representing their mates in the banks, a source of significant electoral funding. At the same time the industry funds are now become the biggest donators to labor coffers. Mr Jones knows where his bread is buttered
You get what you pay for.
The bottom line is Treasury will be the developer of financial services policy and they have the capability to completely overwhelm any novice minister. Just like the Department of Defence continues the practice of overwhelming any Minister for Defence. Look at the BS around calling in medals for Afghanistan where the senior officers still keep their medals
And ASIC, which is supposed to be by definition a regulator of existing legislation, will once again be given a seat at the table to influence the development of policy. That’s not their role, they are the police.
The critical “new approach” is to eliminate the lawyer-created Annual Fee Renewal Forms, endless red tape that simply doesn’t exist in any other nation on earth. Until this occurs, this servicing support fiasco will never end.