Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Of all the policy mistakes of this new government it is hard to find a worse example of policy dysfunction, of policy on the run and of policy that will put ordinary Australians in danger of grave financial loss than the debacle that is this government's changes to financial advice. These changes are the brainchild of the now departed Assistant Treasurer—the Assistant Treasurer who has been stood aside. He is responsible for their design and for their implementation.

There was a glimmer of hope last week, when the Assistant Treasurer stood aside, that maybe sanity would prevail. We thought that maybe a new minister might step in and undo the Assistant Treasurer's changes. But yesterday we saw an article, in the Financial Review, which said that the government was going to 'aggressively defend' its financial advice changes. The article was entitled:

Cormann grabs his FoFA laws from fallen Sinodinos.

It gets better. There is a very large opinion piece on the inside-back page defending the changes to financial advice. You can see it in the copy I am holding. I thought—

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