The bid to enshrine the terms financial planner and financial adviser in law is likely to face its first significant challenge this week in the House of Representatives.
While the discord over the last few days in Parliament has caused disruption and delay to the schedule, Financial Planning Association (FPA) chief executive Mark Rantall believes the proposed legislation could still be tabled by Friday.
“It’s been an interesting week, but we are hopeful,” said Rantall. “The timing will probably not permit voting but it may get through the house if it is seen as a non-contentious bill.”
The FPA does not expect the opposition to knock back the bill, but it is also unlikely to support it.
“The feedback we’ve had from a lot of members of Parliament is that there is no downside and a lot of upside for consumers, so they’d be very supportive of it,” said Rantall.
“Having said that, it is a matter for the cross-benchers, which we are hopeful we will receive support from, and obviously the Coalition.”
While Senator Mathias Cormann, the shadow minister for financial services and superannuation, has indicated he is unlikely to support the bill, the question remains whether he is going to oppose it.
Dante De Gori, general manager of policy and government relations at the FPA, believes there are no real grounds to oppose the proposal.
However, with Cormann only recently returning to Parliament after paternity leave, the FPA expects to have another chance to impress its view on the senator before the vote.
The term financial planner is either restricted or is in the process of being restricted by respective laws governing Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
This is the most ridiculous anti competitive suggestion that I have heard of. You are unable to register the words Financial Planner or Financial Adviser as a trade mark as they are common words of the English language. Why then should they be protected? There is no definition of what a Financial Planner or Financial Adviser actually does. Members of the public have no idea. Those members of the public that have come across people using these descriptions would define these peole as product salesmen and they have a very low level of public esteem or reputation.
If you cannot restrict the word, accountant, how can one restrict these two descriptions.
Restricting use of these terms is restricitng the use of the English language. In the end it will be counterproductive for the FPA as the general public and people who give financial advice will just come up with another term to define advice about money mattters. Our English language is continually developing and the FPA is going to be left behind using antiquated language to desribe what its members do.
This sort of anticompetitive behaviour will bring more disrepute to the financial advice professions and the FPA.