The Australian Greens have hit out at the two major political parties for making changes to proposed financial advice laws that they could lead to behaviours like those revealed during the Hayne royal commission.
Greens’ Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told the Senate during the commencement of debate on the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes bill, which passed earlier this month, that Senators other than those on the government benches and the Coalition were the only ones properly consulted on the bill.
Hanson-Young said the legislation that is implementing aspects of the Quality of Advice Review undertaken by Michelle Levy had been negotiated between the two major parties but that the Greens held concerns about the detail.
She said that the government has made a practice of bundling various measures into omnibus bills in order to push measures through parliament in agreement with the opposition without thinking about further consultation with other stakeholders.
“Senators in this place, particularly in the Greens and on the crossbench, haven’t had time to consider these amendments,” Hanson-Young said.
“But apparently it doesn’t matter because the two-party system will deliver the numbers and they can whack it on through. They like the rush and the guillotine when it suits them.”
Hanson-Young pointed to an example of some of the Greens’ concerns.
“The government’s amendment – let’s be clear – is removing any reference to the financial advice having to relate to members’ interest in a super fund,” Hanson-Young said.
“They are also striking out the provisions that ensure financial advisers can’t price-gouge their clients. What? Why would you scrap that unless you’re doing the bidding of the big end of town, thanks to the Liberal Party?”
The Greens argued in the Senate that they were not persuaded that amendments put forward to parliament would not lead to the type of “insidious, dishonest, tricky behaviour that the [Hayne] royal commission called out and said needed to be cleaned up”.
Coalition members might have agreed to pass the legislation with amendments but that does not mean the government went without opposition giving it a clip over the ear on the way in which the legislation was first crafted.
Coalition Senator Jane Hume told the Senate during the debate on the legislation that the delay had a serious impact on advisers seeking certainty on what laws will govern the way they provide advice to clients.
“The financial advice sector plays a critical role in ensuring that Australians can make informed decisions about their own finances, and any legislation affecting this sector must be very carefully crafted and error free,” she said.
“The government has been shamed into moving amendments that again fix this mess. The Assistant Treasurer has proven himself to be out of touch, out of his depth, and unable to deliver meaningful reforms that benefit the financial advice sector and, by extension, benefit all Australians.”
Hume said that the coalition had expressed concerns about the legislation in the House of Representatives, the negotiated amendments addressed those concerns, but the government was still accountable for increasing the operating costs of advisers.
“Despite the comprehensiveness of the coalition’s response to the Hayne royal commission, this Labor government has continued to wrap this sector with additional administrative burdens that lead to higher fees and higher taxes, and ultimately make advice less affordable and less accessible for ordinary, everyday Australians,” Hume said.
“The protracted delay by this government in responding to the Quality of Advice Review has been led by this deeply disengaged, distracted and, quite frankly, disingenuous Assistant Treasurer, and it’s left the financial advice industry in a state of limbo, facing uncertainty and instability—something that, in opposition, the current Assistant Treasurer vowed he would fix.”
