Advisers must band together: AIOFP

On Thursday, ifa broke the news that Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones will unveil the government’s response to the Quality of Advice Review on 13 June at an exclusive event organised by the peak body for the super industry, ASFA.

Peter Johnston, the executive director of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP), called the news a “light bulb” moment about the internal machinations of the political process in Australia.

“It is time we learn from it and finally do something about it,” Mr Johnston said.

“The harsh reality of the Australian political landscape is that allowing any person or entity to make political donations of any description to any political party is a profound conflict and should be banned with criminal charge implications, but nothing has been done about it since Federation in 1901.

“The only section of society funding all political parties should be the taxpayer, that ensures all political parties will act in the best interests of taxpayers not those who fund them — it’s not rocket science. You may recall Paul Keating said ‘just follow the money trail…’”

He added that the commencement of the new National Anti-Corruption Commission on 1 July would hopefully help reduce the effects of conflicts, but that allegiances run deep.

“It is common knowledge that broadly, the institutions favour the Liberal Party and the industry super funds the ALP,” Mr Johnston said.

“Despite our support of the ALP in recent times with marginal seats etc, the millions they get from other sources puts us down the pecking order for ‘favours’, hence the super fund function announcement decision on Tuesday.”

The answer to what to do about this, according to Mr Johnston, is to improve the place of advisers in this system.

“Easy solution, if all advisers band together and pay $10 per week, we will have $15,600,000 in two years ready to spend at the next election,” he said.

“That will certainly get us up the pecking order!”

The AIOFP has consistently backed Labor as the better option for advisers, including before the federal election last year.

“Do we stay with what we have experienced over the past eight years or put our faith in a new ALP government? The sporting parlance is look at the score board and if you do not like what you see, look at the other option,” Mr Johnston told ifa at the time.

Following the election, Mr Johnston labelled Mr Jones “the most honest politician” in Canberra.

“I've been doing this for 30 years now, dealing with politics and whatever, and the bottom line is he’s the most honest I’ve actually come across,” Mr Johnston said.