AFA Inspire chair and board member Deborah Kent told ifa yesterday that the association was proud of the recent efforts of its members and wanted to thank them for their contribution to the political dialogue.
“Our members have taken up this grassroots campaign with gusto,” Ms Kent said. “And they’re still going, pumping out the communications and getting involved in the debate. No matter the outcome [of the FOFA parliamentary debate] our members have played an important role.”
A spokesperson for Palmer United Party Senator Glenn Lazarus reportedly said the office has received “thousands” of phone calls from financial advice community stakeholders in recent days, as did a spokesperson for the office of Democratic Labour Party Senator John Madigan.
AFA members received a communication from chief executive Brad Fox last Thursday 10 July urging them to take up individual lobbying activities.
“[FOFA] disallowance would mean the removal of the key FOFA changes including the solution for grandfathering,” Mr Fox said.
“This means that advisers have only three days to contact Senators to influence their vote. There are five independent Senators and three in the Palmer United Party that will determine the outcome of the FOFA amendments. They need to hear from you on what the amendments will mean.
“We encourage every AFA member to call each of these Senators in their state to request their support for the FOFA amendments.”
The efforts came ahead of a deal eventually struck between the government and the Palmer United Party which will see a number of new “consumer protection measures” introduced.
Service from an industry super fund ?
Recognition from industry funds that advisers service the ongoing needs of their clients ?
The solution is simple.
No longer will we passively let clients sit with their industry super accounts. Out they will come. If fees are the issue we will direct them to Vanguard Index funds at 0.18% The lies and deceit of the industry funds are going to haunt them for years to come. Now who has the higher moral ground ?
You’re quite right Tim. It is a problem when an adviser wants to help a client with their “not for profit” super fund but has to keep phoning for updates and chasing things up, not to mention can’t bill the client’s fund a one-off advice fee. That should have been part of FoFA…but oh no, as we now can all plainly see, it was never about making things easier for advisers and clients.
Well done AFA. It was a mammoth effort but the forces rallied and no doubt had an influence on the outcome. However I for one think that this debate wont go away until we see more open architecture around APL’s as in reality that is where much of the root cause of perceived conflicts exist, additionally if a small account holder in an industry fund wants an adviser to be their point of contact and advice in relation to their options – the member should be able to do so and agree to direct any fees payable to the adviser from their account – I honestly believe that would get rid of many of the perceived issues.