Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak to this bill because in many respects it symbolises many of the problems that are incumbent with this government. The issue is that the bill and the amendments incorporate an approach to regulation on the financial services sector that is entirely inconsistent with the best interests of Australian consumers. The minister at the table would make out that this is all about providing a better framework, more transparency and better regulation. He has Choice on board, he has the FPA on board and maybe the FSC. The reality is that you cannot escape the fundamental connection between the amount of regulation and the compliance costs associated with that. From that you also cannot escape the fact that increased compliance costs mean increased costs to consumers.

The extraordinary thing about the minister at the table is that this is all about him having a tick-a-box. The tick-a-box the minister is after on this occasion is the chance to stand up before the Australian people and say, 'Look what I delivered. Look what I have done. Aren't I a great visionary when it comes to financial services regulation,' as part of his tick-a-box approach in getting to the highest office in the land. But the reality is that this is not good for consumers and it is not supported by financial planners that I talk to in my electorate, as well as those more broadly when it comes to personal interactions that I have. I bring to the debate a childhood with a father who was a financial planner for 30 years—in fact, one of the best financial planners at AMP, the fifth biggest in the country. That was during an era when there was not this raft of regulation that has existed prior to this point but now is being exacerbated in wholesale terms by this government. There is one fundamental thing that this minister and this government cannot escape, and that is that nothing—no amount of regulation—can deal with the fact that some people make bad choices. No amount of regulation can deal with the fact that there will always, unfortunately, be some bad financial planners, and the reality is that those that make poor choices, like those that are bad financial planners, can never be stopped by regulation. It is analogous to road rules: you can have all the road rules you want, but at the end of the day people make bad choices and people will break the law.

So the question is one of balance: what is the appropriate level of balance in a marketplace so that we can ensure that there is civil order and a framework in place that provides optimum outcomes for consumers, but not so much so that we tip the critical mass of regulation too far. What the legislation before the chamber today does is take it too far, and the net impact of all of this is that Australian consumers will simply not go to financial planners in numbers as large as they have historically because it will simply be too expensive for them. That is my concern as someone who believes in smaller government, believes that the market should reign supreme and believes that consumers ultimately need to take responsibility for how they manage their money. This government has done more to send Australians to the poorhouse and impoverish a number of small business Australians than any government preceding it, as far as I am concerned, with some of its reckless policies.

Mr Shorten interjecting—

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