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

Let me tell you very clearly that our only motivation here is the public interest. Let me tell you something that has always been true and that will always be true. The people that like red tape are the bigger businesses because they actually can deal with it. The big banks do not mind red tape. The big banks have got the capacity to deal with it and to work around it. It is the smaller businesses that struggle with additional red tape. It creates a barrier to entry; it creates increases in concentration; it creates a lessening of competition—all things that are against the public interest.

The public interest is to ensure that we have a financial services system which is as efficient, as transparent and as competitive as possible, which has high corporate governance standards, which has high professional standards and where people across Australia can have access to high-quality advice that they can trust but which is also affordable. If we continue to add more and more burdens that only add marginal additional consumer protection benefit, then we are forcing people to pay more for their advice then they should have to. We are forcing them to accept lower retirement savings and lower retirement income ultimately than they should be able to achieve if we had a more sensible arrangement.

I am disappointed that it has come to this point because the government did negotiate an agreement with the Palmer United Party and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party. We did agree to a whole range of changes as part of that process, changes that we have given effect to in amendments to the substantive legislation which has already been circulated and which indeed has already been assessed for a second time now by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. Indeed, the Senate Economics Legislation Committee has conducted two inquiries into this legislation. Both of those inquiries have recommended its passage.

I would say specifically in relation to Senator Muir that, as part of the negotiations with the Palmer United Party and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, Senator Muir said that for him to support our improvements he needed the government to progress implementation of a public register of financial advisers to provide more transparent information about the credentials and the status of financial advisers in the industry—who they work for, what their qualifications are, what their relevant past history is and so on. The government has delivered on all those commitments 100 per cent. We have delivered 100 per cent on every part of the agreement that we have committed to.

On that basis the Palmer United Party, including Senator Lambie, and also Senator Muir, on behalf of the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, agreed to vote against any disallowance and to support our FoFA legislation as amended to give effect to the additional measures in the letter to Mr Palmer as representing the Palmer United Party and the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party in that negotiation.

It is very disappointing for the government in those circumstances. We understand that now good public policy is getting caught up in internal party infighting.