Guillotine motion sees pollies avoid adviser scrutiny

The government’s guillotine motion on the final sitting day of Parliament for 2024 has provided a reprieve from adviser scrutiny for both Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones and his opposite number Luke Howarth, as both have been forced to miss their scheduled appearance at the FAAA Congress in Brisbane on Friday.

The lower house met for a final 45-minute session on Friday morning to pass a flurry of bills that had cleared the Senate on Thursday night following Labor’s last-minute push to advance a series of reforms, including the objective of super, RBA reform, merger reforms and more, before Christmas shutdown.

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Jones and Howarth were meant to appear in Brisbane, however, they were both stuck in Canberra, leaving advisers with little chance to question either the minister or his potential replacement before the second tranche of Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms is announced, and possibly before the next election.

Speaking at the congress on Thursday, Phil Anderson, general manager policy, advocacy and standards, said the FAAA understands the announcement regarding tranche two is “imminent”.

George John, FAAA senior manager government relations and policy, added: “I do want to assure all members that we will be launching a federal election campaign where we want to make the voices and concerns of the advice community part of the election. I’d be failing at my job if advice was not to be considered as part of the election package next year.

“We’ve already started speaking to both sides, Coalition, Labor and also the teal independents about things that would make sense to our membership base.”

Jones and Howarth did offer a glimpse into what their election pitches to advisers would look like earlier this week at a dinner organised by the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) for its members in Canberra, and attended by ifa.

The shadow financial services minister, for his part, accused the government of being “captive” to “union-run super funds”.

“Its approach to advice reform has prioritised that part of the market,” Howarth told attendees.

“Independent advisers are not a priority for the Albanese Labor government. And this is, I think, an anti-business government.”

Howarth also highlighted the 700-day delay in implementing key recommendations from Michelle Levy’s Quality of Advice Review, arguing the government has reduced reform to a “last-minute” effort.

The shadow minister criticised the ballooning costs of the CSLR, calling for significant reductions and likening the situation to mismanagement in the private sector, which would typically lead to severe consequences.

“If that was in the private sector, in your business, you’d either be going broke or someone will be getting sacked,” he said.

“But 70 per cent higher than what Treasury estimated, something isn’t right. You have enough of your own admin to do, as a lot of you would probably be small traders or just with a couple of staff, you’ve got a lot of admin to do and pay for, let alone paying for the CSLR’s admin costs as well.”

The shadow minister argued that there is a vital need to get the cost of the CSLR down, saying “we need to take the razor to this”. “They [the government] need to start by admitting that this is out of control and not what was intended.”

Jones, meanwhile, focused more on praising the Labor government and cracking jokes than addressing the actual issues and solutions.

He refrained from providing a clear timeline for the release of the government’s second round of reforms, though he assured it is coming “very, very soon”.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Jones said, adding that the government “will be implementing the majority of those recommendations, but not all of them”.

Offering limited details, Jones reassured attendees that the new class of advisers would not undermine the profession but will instead create an additional “career pathway” into it.

He stressed, “We need more doors for people to walk through, and we’ll be restructuring the laws to ensure that we can have a new class of financial adviser.

“And we’ll do this in a way which ensures that there is another career pathway into the profession.”