Shadow minister accuses Labor of keeping advisers at distance, says Liberals acted in ‘desperation’

Speaking on an upcoming ifa podcast, the shadow financial services minister and shadow assistant treasurer, Stuart Robert, said Michelle Levy’s final Quality of Advice Review (QAR) report is an “outstanding piece of work”, and should be implemented in full, “now”.

Mr Robert criticised the government for “consulting upon the consultation”, calling it a “farce”, and questioned the competence of the Financial Services Minister, Stephen Jones.

“It’s like an episode of Monty Python. You’ve got a Minister presiding now over the Ministry of Silly Walks. This Michelle Levy review is an outstanding piece of work. The Coalition believes it should be implemented in full and implemented now,” the shadow minister said.

“It needs to be implemented. It’s an outstanding body of work. It has broad support from the entire industry. The entire industry. The only area where there’s not support is from consumer advocates, but the rest of the industry is speaking as one. It’s a no-brainer. The Minister has got to move out of the Ministry of Silly Walks office he’s in and get on with implementing a reform that’s desperately needed,” he continued.

Mr Robert didn’t hold back and accused the Labor party of keeping advisers at a distance.

“It’s one thing for the Labor Party to hold the financial services industry, to hold them at arm’s length, to think little of them, which is what the government does. But it’s another thing to punish everyday Australians by not allowing them to get the advice they need. The government’s got to be better. Minister Jones has got to wake up and implement this,” he said.

Asked about the reputation his party has among advisers, Mr Robert said his government "had no choice" but to act, and referred to FASEA as an act of desperation.

"One of the challenges that came out, of course Future Advice [FOFA reforms], the Ripoll report that I was part of, and the implementation changes there, is that the industry couldn't bring itself together," Mr Robert said. 

"It couldn't bring itself to have a set of education standards. It couldn't bring itself to have a set of compliance standards. And the industry was asked time and time again. And as we've said before, it was very fractured. In desperation then government stepped in with FASEA. Now I've been the first to admit that I thought FASEA was quite a failure, but it was desperation that saw government do that when industry should have done that itself," the shadow minister added.

"It's all well and good for industry to throw rocks at government. But when industry does not self-regulate itself, it gives government no choice. And that's the key thing. If government's got no choice, it has to act."

While discussing the industry’s push for the implementation of QAR quick wins, Mr Robert expressed his support for the adoption of the report as a whole. Additionally, he endorsed the recommendation that calls for superannuation funds to offer straightforward financial advice.

“There’s no question the government needs to implement the entire report as a whole. Pulling out, for example, recommendation six I think it is, which deals with intra-fund advice and changes to the SIS Act for the benefit of superannuation funds by itself will have some help. It’ll aid and it’ll assist, but the whole implementation needs to be done as a whole,” Mr Robert said.

“We’re talking about a cost-of-living crisis that Labor has got now across the country where financial advice is not affordable. You’ve got the biggest generation of Australians, the baby boomers, who are retiring, unable to afford advice. Advice is too cumbersome.

“You’ve got a new generation of young Australians coming through that need advice and of course in superannuation you’ve got people going into retirement products who also need advice. The SIS Act prevents. All of this says implement it in full”.

To hear more from Mr Robert, tune in to our podcast from Wednesday.