JAWG meets with Jones: Minister to prioritise ‘quick wins’

On Thursday, Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones welcomed the Joint Associations Working Group (JAWG) in Canberra to discuss the government’s new roadmap for financial advice reform.

“It was a great chat this morning on how these reforms will ensure Australians have access to reliable and affordable financial advice,” Mr Jones said on his LinkedIn profile.

Speaking to ifa following the meeting, Sarah Abood, chief executive officer of the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA), said a clearer understanding of what the consultation timeframe will look like will become known in the next fortnight.

Overall, she described the interaction with the minister as “really positive” and added that a “lot of deep conversation” about the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) was had.

“The feeling is great. The minister is clearly understanding the concerns that the profession has raised with all of the red tape and bureaucracy and so on, and probably the best news out of that for us is that he really does recognise these are urgent to solve and he is really keen to prioritise them,” Ms Abood said.

“That’s music to our ears, obviously, and we’ll be working with him very closely on getting those quick wins into drafting and across to Parliament as quickly as we possibly can.”

She confirmed that changes to statements of advice (SOAs) will be consulted on right off the bat.

“What we’ll do is try to ensure that changes that are not controversial, that are broadly agreed, will be grouped up and put through as quickly as possible,” Ms Abood said.

Those more contentious issues, she assured, won’t be delayed.

“He doesn’t want to see those changes delayed so that’s very much in line with what we’ve been advocating for very consistently since the start of this review.”

Mr Jones unveiled the government’s response to the QAR to a small audience of superannuation fund CEOs and senior industry executives on Tuesday.

In it, he confirmed the government will accept 14 of the 22 recommendations made by QAR lead Michelle Levy, while consulting further on the remaining eight.

The government’s legislative response to the QAR will be divided into three streams, he also said, with stream one set to prioritise recommendations deemed as crucial for advisers, including the removal of fee disclosure statements and the redesign of SOAs.

While advisers welcomed these particular announcements, some concerns were raised around the government’s intentions to consult further on the new look of SOAs and potential delays.