New minister kicks off meetings with advice associations

The Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister has been relatively quiet since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed his appointment in May, but has kicked off his meetings with financial advice associations this week.

On Wednesday, Mulino met with both the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) and the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP), leaving both organisations encouraged.

“The FAAA has had a very positive meeting with Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services the Honourable Dr Daniel Mulino earlier this week,” FAAA chief executive Sarah Abood said.

“On Wednesday, myself and chair David Sharpe met with the minister in Melbourne, and we are very encouraged by his willingness to listen and work with the profession.

“The minister acknowledged the issues facing our profession and agrees that the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms are a priority. He is focused on releasing the remaining tranche of the reforms as quickly as possible.”

AIOFP executive director Peter Johnston said a delegation from the association had an hour-long meeting with the minister and some Treasury advisers.

“We were all impressed with the minister’s knowledge of our profession – you may recall he was Minister [Bill] Shorten's adviser with FOFA leading into the 2013 federal election,” Johnston said.

“I think the minister is the most impressive with industry knowledge we have encountered in our 27-year history, a great start and badly needed at this particular time in our profession’s development.”

According to Abood, Minister Mulino clearly understood the “importance and urgency” of cleaning up the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort.

“The final report from the Treasury review, as well as a finalised estimate for the FY26 levy, are expected early in the new financial year,” she said.

“The FAAA has made a comprehensive submission as part of this enquiry and we are keen to understand the government’s response to the review, and planned actions, as soon as possible.

“We also spoke about the future health and growth of the profession, including the importance of reducing costs and red tape, and attracting and retaining more financial advisers to ensure affordable and accessible advice for all Australians.

“We look forward to working closely with Minister Mulino on these issues to achieve positive change for financial advisers and Australian consumers.”

In addition to prosecuting its platform directly to the minister, the AIOFP said they also discussed the importance of dealing with “bad apples”.

“All stakeholders need to understand that if financial advisers do not act in the best interests of their clients, the clients will eventually leave them and they will no longer have a business. Like any profession/industry, there are always a few ‘bad apples’ who should be severely dealt with,” Johnston said.

“There was obviously never going to be any decisive immediate action from our session but we came away thinking the minister will listen, he will understand, will always act in the best interests of consumers and more importantly, he will not rely upon others to make a decision.”

The takeaways from the FAAA and the AIOFP are broadly in line with Financial Services Council CEO Blake Briggs’ description of Minister Mulino.

Speaking on The ifa Show last month, Briggs argued that the minister’s involvement in the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms process has the potential to positively influence his approach to current reform efforts.

“Dr Mulino is a great choice for the role, so he’s received broad industry welcome and support, including from the Financial Services Council,” Briggs said.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Daniel for quite a long time. I first met him when he was a staffer under Bill Shorten working on financial services and tax policy issues, and so his knowledge and experience of the industry is very deep.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of people in the advice community would remember that Shorten period as the period of FOFA and that might bring back a bit of PTSD and shock, but the reality is, I think Daniel, during that period, was one of the really sensible policy heads in that office and did a lot of good work with all the organisations that were involved in some of those debates.”