Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I have previously touched on in the debate around this bill, one of my biggest concerns with this proposed, massive new amount of regulation for the financial services industry is that, in effect, it is not going to deal with the issue of poor advice to clients. It deals predominantly with issues to do with fee disclosure, risk insurance inside superannuation funds and intrafund advice. It is an enormous amount of regulation that, according to the industry, is going to cost some $700 million to implement for $350 million per annum to comply. In the scope of this legislation of seeking to reduce the cost to consumers, the actual affect is probably that it is going to increase it.

It does not deal with the underlying issue that the Cooper review and other reviews of the financial services industry have touched on, and that is the matter of advice. The industry already has significant amounts of regulation and one of the key components in that regulation is the know-your-client rule. One of my arguments for some time has been the effect of lack of enforcement of existing regulations on planners doing the wrong thing in the industry, which has led to some of the issues we are facing and discussing today. Equally it is also a failure of product. None of this legislation deals with the product providers that have failed to look after the interests of the investors. It is always the advisors, the easy targets, that are subject to this increasing and onerous regulation. Not only is it creating concern for them personally but also it is creating enormous difficulties and problems in their businesses.

As the member for North Sydney has pointed out, the coalition has proposed a number of amendments which have not even been touched on by the government.

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