Ms O’Dwyer made the announcement on Saturday at a press conference, citing “very personal” reasons.
“The decisive reasons are very personal,” Ms O’Dwyer said.
“My two smart and loving children, Olivia and Edward … will reach primary school age during the next parliament.
“If my husband and I want to give ourselves the opportunity, the best opportunity to have a third child, we need to be very realistic.”
Ms O’Dwyer has been in the cabinet since 2015, first as the assistant treasurer from September 2015 to July 2016.
Then she continued as the minister for revenue and financial services from July 2016 to August 2018.
Since August 2018, Ms O’Dwyer has been the Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations before her shock announcement over the weekend.
Ms O’Dwyer cited her work in making changes to superannuation and helping establish the Australian Financial Complaints Authority among her major achievements.
“Superannuation is now on a more sustainable footing and more Australians have an opportunity to unlock its potential, through reforms such as deductible personal contributions and also catch-up contributions,” Ms O’Dwyer said.
“I’m also proud to have taken on vested interests by introducing legislation that better protects the retirement savings of million of Australians – by capping fees, by making sure that those fees are low on low-balance accounts, by banning exit fees on all accounts, improving insurance arrangements and proactively reuniting lost and inactive superannuation accounts with their rightful owners.
“My consumer focus has seen the Australian Financial Complaints Authority be established, world-leading whistleblower protections introduced and our insolvency laws overhauled.”
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg responded on Twitter saying Ms O’Dwyer “can be very proud of her many achievements in public life”.
“She has been a great colleague and friend, serving the country and the Liberal Party with distinction. I wish Kelly, Jon, Olivia and Edward all the very best,” Mr Frydenberg said.
However, the executive director of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals, Peter Johnston, was less complimentary, saying he had “difficulty saying anything positive about Ms O’Dwyer’s performance as the minister for financial services”.
“Unfortunately she drove two ridiculous pieces of legislation, FASEA and LIF, that has been of no benefit for consumers or the industry in general. We can only hope some of her allies she placed into powerful positions will now also move on,” Mr Johnston said.
She got what she wanted ( or was told ) to achieve, the starting of the destruction of the Financial service industry. She has been spouting for a long time the Future Fund idea to manage australians superannuation.
Comrad O’Dwyer what a piece of work she was to Advisers and the Super Industry.
It’s “comrade” genius.
So angry hearing this news. I sense a Liberal Party cover up personally as insiders knew she’d lose her seat at the next election, meanwhile us advisers have been absolutely decimated by her decisions with FASEA, LIF, the ASIC Funding Fee and TPB fees.
The damage she’s done will take years to recover from – sadly, many never will though. Good riddance you ignorant, stubborn, mislead, corrupted piece of work.
May the karma bus mow you down and back up many times…
Thank goodness that Kexit has left the building!
Time will prove what a disaster she has created for so many Australian families that advisers can no longer afford to help insure…
Goodbye and enjoy your pollie pension Kexit.
O’Dwyers major achievements was to totally destroy both the life insurance and financial advice industries. How convenient for her to cut and run before the Sh!t hits the fan. Taking time out for family what a load of rubbish. If she goes and gets a job with a bank or insurance company after this- ICAC need to get involved and investigate.
[quote=Anonymous]But sadly she did consider the people that were charged for financial advice they never received; the people that were sold insurance they could never realistically claim; the people that were put into in-house super/insurance products that weren’t in their best interests……….[/quote]Most of that rubbish is a by-product of this Minister NEVER asking ASIC about General Advice and why ASIC has always pushed General Advice over Personal Advice. She too absorbed ASICs blind spot about commissions for Persona Advice risk advisers versus commission for backpackers calling mentally retarded people to flog unwanted products. This Minister NEVER consulted practitioners with any intent to LISTEN. Good riddance ….
https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/insurance/life-insurance have a watch of this video from ASIC not once do they say you should talk to an adviser to give you the best outcomes and no one talks about the fact advisers give you a guaranteed renewable policy which the insurance company cannot change gives you the shits
Good Riddance to a most incompetent individual. Hop she has a 30% pay cut when she decides to go back to work. A dead set liability to the Government..
She had no Experience ever to be the respected financial services minister in the first place.
Will not be missed.
Ding Dong the Witch is dead…
Lets not stoop to that level..
Really, that is the best thing you could come up with? It seems that most comments on this website seem ignorant of the fact that the Australian public has been completely screwed over by the financial services industry – while advisers aren’t necessarily to blame for alot of it, we should accept that we don’t have much sympathy/support from the general public. I acknowledge that the bulk of the damage was done by the banks/AMP, but the reality is that the entire industry needs to wear it. As is the way with most changes like this they will probably go too far and too soon for most people’s liking, but as an industry we should just stop the whinging and get on with it.
whatev’s
Haha you beat me to it!
about 3 years too late !!
Good riddance. If O’Dwyer wants a job in the future she should be forced to undertake a useless degree and a supervised year to pay for her corruption though I expect she will turn up in a cosy bank or FSC member job. She didn’t stop to think about all of the advisers struggling to raise kids who will now be forced out of the industry because they cant afford to stay in it.
Nor did she stop to think about the thousands of unfortunate Australians who will live in poverty after illness or accident, because she made it much harder for them to get access to good insurance.
But sadly she did consider the people that were charged for financial advice they never received; the people that were sold insurance they could never realistically claim; the people that were put into in-house super/insurance products that weren’t in their best interests……….
oh please! So you’re trying to say she brought about wonderful enlightened, even-handed measured, well thought out, intelligent and considered change, rather than opportunistic, biased, politicised, vote-gaining, damaging, ill considered, hasty knee jerk reactions? How naive of you!
Are you for real?? You forget she was one one of the individuals that did not want a Royal Commission. She brought in these changes before the Royal Commission to decimate advisers for the benefit of banks and insurance companies and the Royal Commission showed the same banks and Insurance companies who have benefited from O’Dwyers corruption being the corrupt ones.
and boy is she going to reap the rewards. minimum $1m pa salary plus bonus as “head of government relations” for NAB or CBA or ANZ or WBC
100% guaranteed. just watch
Just like a stinking scummy seagull; came in created chaos, made nothing but loud noises to get attention by screeching incoherent nonsense, made an absolute mess of everything just to get what she wanted and when the going will be getting even harder with Labor coming around, is now buggering off, leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces while fending off the socialists intent on destroying our economy.
I didn’t think I could dislike anyone as much as Kell, Medcraft, Shorten & Bowen, but she is right up there
Agree totally, Over Bloody Complicated ODwyer was a complete wrecking ball to Financial Advisers and Small Business, I was wishing she lost her seat at the next election and now I’m just glad to see the end of this must repugnant women from politics.
Id imagine those ‘personal reasons’ are being exposed as not understanding what the future fund is this very week….
Let that sink in… The former minister for financial services didn’t understand the mere basics of what the future fund is… But made political decisions on the whole financial services industry.
Will slot back in nicely to a bank role like Bairdy.
what was that on? I would love to watch or read that one?
https://www.afr.com/personal-finance/superannuation-and-smsfs/kelly-odwyer-lashes-superannuation-ticket-clippers-20190115-h1a30n
She thinks the future fund is just the super fund for public servants…
LIF as worked so well, saved insurance companies Millions and all i have seen is premiums going up crazy jumps out of CPI cause they are “losing money”. they are just trying to cut financial planners out to distributed shit insurance policies which simply payout less than advised policies. They pay virgin and Woolworth (TAL) SunSuper (AIA) for client data and push out watered down products then walking into office and they fully support advisers.
Now add best interest into the mix they want people to churn insurance. I would like to see the recent switch figures now LIF in going….
Seems to be the way of the world these days. Do as much damage as possible without any sort of consultation with the people most affected by half baked decisions, and then conveniently disappear and leave the mess for someone else to clean up. Just like Brexit.
Unfortunately, I think you are correct mate.
It will be interesting to see where she ends up
my guess would be in an advisory capacity to a big 4 bank (probably the NAB)
She will definitely become a consultant for one of the big 4. Thats pretty much the end game for polititians these days.
Do what the banks, resource companies, or chinese companies tell you to do. Quit politics because you need time with your family. Become an adviser to the company who wrote the legislation for you.
I think we have misjudged her totally. Guessing from how she took action that affected planners, I bet she doesn’t end up with the Big 4, but ends up working with the ISA!!!