In a statement, Maurice Blackburn said the scheme was one of a series of recommendations that had seemingly fallen by the wayside despite the government’s commitment to legislate all of commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s recommendations.
“The delay in implementing a compensation scheme of last resort (CSLR) is another key recommendation that must be acted on – commissioner Hayne’s report makes clear such a scheme is badly needed to compensate victims of negligent financial advisers who have gone bust, yet the government is still to introduce legislation to Parliament for this,” the firm’s principal Kim Shaw said.
“There remains no good reason not to act on this recommendation, and we again call on the government to ensure that a CSLR is implemented this year as a priority.”
The scheme is part of a backlog of forthcoming royal commission legislation that was delayed as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, with the government having passed one tranche of new laws as part of its response to the inquiry late last year, and another currently sitting in Parliament.
At the AFA Vision Conference in October last year, now Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy Jane Hume said legislation around the scheme was likely to be introduced to Parliament in mid-2021.
Ms Shaw said the inquiry had provided “a roadmap for changes needed right across the financial services industry to protect consumers from poor behaviour”, but that the progress made since the commission handed down its final report was disappointing.
“As recent reports have noted, it is now two years since that time and more than half of commissioner Hayne’s recommendations are still yet to be acted on in full or have been abandoned altogether,” she said.
“The government has pointed to COVID-19 as the reason for delay on a number of recommendations, but the fact remains that many of these recommendations are now more important than ever in ensuring consumers are properly compensated for harm caused and protected from poor behaviour.”
Ms Shaw pointed to commitments in the banking and lending sector such as the tightening of responsible lending laws and introduction of a best interest duty for mortgage brokers as two commitments that had been abandoned.
“On today’s two-year anniversary we urge government to urgently act on the remaining Hayne recommendations to ensure people don’t continue to find themselves worse off in the long run,” she said.
Sounds like the slimy ambulance chasers are looking for another honeypot, now that insurances in inactive, low balance, super funds are being turned off.
Maurice Blackburn are blood sucking scum just waiting for a never ending pool of blood to feed off.
That’s all the Advice Industry needs is an ambulance chasing bunch like Maurice Blackburn to hover over ever technicality of 9 different Regulators Adviser cannot possible meet all the REGS.
Advisers will be Guilty ever time and Maurice Blackburn will only take 50% plus of the claim as their commission.
Sounds like a wonderful system hey Maurice Blackburn – what a bunch of low life’s.
This is all about vested interest for the ambulance chasing lawyers. Once there is a CSLR in place they will launch more advertising campaigns to attract more potential clients to try and crucify financial planners who in the majority look after their clients. There needs to be a RC into the legal profession as their ethics are ins ome cases worse than used car salesment.
This comment would have a lot more weight if it was not sourced from a renowned ambulance chasing law firm. Conflict of interest????
Wonder how much of the recovered money from such a fund would make its way to claimant and how much to the lawyer?
The ambulance chasers are only worried because it affects their ability to collect their fees / commission when an adviser declares bankruptcy. The bigger question is when is the government going to seriously look at these types of firms who take massive percentages of settlements under the guise of no win / no fee.
Until ASIC end their 10 year look-back crusade, which is largely based on extreme, untested interpretations of the corps act, applied retrospectively, any such scheme would be so costly and unworkable, that the dwindling number of advisers remaining in this industry, will be forced to close their doors. Ditto the ridiculous and unworkable Code of Ethics.