Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank those senators who have contributed to this debate, although many of those opposite have demonstrated a profound ignorance or wilful disregard of this important industry—crocodile tears and, within the same breath, a call for even more regulation. They have conflated unadvised product failure with financial advice. The disrespect—indeed contempt—those opposite have for the financial advice industry can be no better demonstrated than when, as recently as June, in this very chamber, Labor senator Jenny McAllister labelled financial advisers as shonks. She said the people who would benefit most from these arrangements are financial advisers giving shonky advice—the kind of advice we have seen again and again, the kind of advice exposed in the Hayne royal commission. The Australian Association of Financial Advisers said these comments were unfair, unreasonable and doing much damage to the financial advice profession. Enough is enough, and it must stop.

The Morrison government is focused on cutting red tape, cutting regulatory alignment, creating regulatory alignment and reducing costs for financial advisers and financial advice businesses, which is exactly what the industry has called for. This is the very best way to ensure that Australians can continue to access high-quality, professional and affordable financial advice. This bill is simply one piece of that puzzle.

The Morrison government is also committed to implementing its response to the financial services royal commission and is delivering one of its commitments through this legislation. The Hayne royal commission had 76 recommendations for reform. Fifty-four of those were directed to government. This is No. 53, and the final recommendation will be delivered in the form of legislation imminently. The remaining recommendations were to regulators and 10 were to the industry, which I think is worth pointing out to Senator Sheldon.

This bill implements recommendation 2.10, which recommends the establishment of a single disciplinary body for financial advisers and that all financial advisers who provide personal financial advice to retail clients be registered. The bill expands the role of the Financial Services and Credit Panel within ASIC to take on the role of a single disciplinary body and gives the panel new sanctions powers. The bill also seeks to streamline the number of bodies involved in the oversight of financial advisers by transferring the functions currently undertaken by the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority to the minister responsible for the Corporations Act 2001 and to ASIC. Finally, the bill provides that tax financial advisers will no longer be regulated by the Tax Practitioners Board and instead will be regulated only under the Corporations Act 2001. This is consistent with recommendation 7.1 from the independent review of the Tax Practitioners Broad.

This bill reaffirms this government's support for the advice industry, building on measures such as the temporary and targeted relief for financial advisers by reducing the cost recovery levies charged by ASIC for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years. This relief will see ASIC levies charged for personal advice to retail clients restored to their 2018-19 level of $1,142 per adviser for the next two years. This relief will represent a 63 per cent reduction relative to the level estimated in ASIC's 2020-21 cost recovery implementation standard of $3,138 per adviser. So this means that advice businesses will save around $1,996 per adviser per year.

This government recognises that, during the worse days of the pandemic, thousands of Australians turned to their financial advisers and that, for so many Australians, considered advice from a professional and experienced adviser was what helped them through the worst of the COVID induced recession. Ensuring that Australians can continue to access high-quality professional and affordable financial advice is incredibly important as we emerge from the pandemic, and I commend this bill to the Senate.