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

No, Senator Bullock, I do not agree with that. The government is keeping all of the consumer protections that matter. After things like the Storm Financial collapse, after some of the events that Senator Bullock is talking about, there was actually a bipartisan inquiry which was chaired by Mr Ripoll—a good man and now the shadow minister for financial services, but a good man nevertheless. It was a bipartisan committee with a bipartisan set of recommendations. We supported all of the recommendations that came out of that inquiry. But Mr Shorten, as the Minister for Financial Services in the last Labor government, thought that he should go a couple of steps further. He thought that he should go further than what was recommended by the Ripoll Inquiry because he was being pushed into doing so by the vested interests of industry super funds. This has got nothing to do with trying to prevent further victims of bad financial advice. We are keeping the improvements that matter. We are keeping the requirement to act in the best interests of clients. We are keeping the ban on conflicted remunerations. What we are getting rid of is all the bad red tape which does not make a difference. (Time expired)