Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

What I would say in response to Senator Bullock's question is that this government absolutely supports the consumer protections that matter to consumers. What we do not support is the additional unnecessary red tape, which pushes up the cost of advice for consumers and which was imposed on consumers and on small-business financial advisers at the behest of union-dominated industry funds. In all of the submissions to the Ripoll inquiry, which looked at Australian financial products and services, there was only one submission that recommended, for example, this requirement that clients of financial advisers should keep re-signing contracts to their advisers on a regular basis. And guess who that was? Guess who made that recommendation out of more than 400 submissions? It was Industry Super Australia. And guess what? After Industry Super Australia was successful in convincing Minister Shorten to impose that additional bit of red tape, guess what else they negotiated?

Opposition senators interjecting—