Draft legislation on ‘quick wins’ ready within weeks, Jones says

Speaking in Wollongong on Friday, Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones confirmed that the first stream of the government’s response to the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) has been “sorted” but that the agreed changes still need to be converted into “written rules”.

This, he said, should be wrapped up in the next three to four weeks, with draft legislation on the “red tape removal agenda” likely to be made public by the end of October.

“We should have some legislation in Parliament in the first quarter of next year,” the minister told a room full of advisers at a joint event organised by the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) and the Financial Services Council (FSC), and attended by ifa.

Legislation for the second stream of the government’s QAR response – the stream extending the advisory powers of superannuation funds – will follow closely behind.

Asked by advisers why it’s been such a lengthy wait, Mr Jones said his parliamentary remit extends beyond advice.

“I deal with one-third of the legislation that goes through Parliament,” he said.

“What I received from [Michelle] Levy was not draft legislation,” the minister added.

Previously it had been expected that the minister’s red tape removal agenda would hit Parliament by the end of the year.

Under stream one, Mr Jones earlier committed to scrapping fee disclosure statements and replacing statements of advice (SOAs) with “fit-for-purpose” advice records.

Also under this initial stream, the government intends to eliminate the safe harbour steps from the best interests duty, consolidate the ongoing fee renewal and consent requirements into a single form, and introduce standardised consumer consent requirements to classify a consumer as a wholesale or sophisticated client.

“It’s about decluttering,” Mr Jones said on Friday.

But, he conceded, “it’s not going to change your universe”.

Moving on to stream two – dubbed the “expanding access to retirement income advice” stream – which should see superannuation funds expand their provision of advice, Mr Jones said these changes are equally as important.

“Even when we do all that [remove red tape], we still haven’t squared the 16,000 advisers and the 5 million retirees issue. So that’s where stream two comes in,” the minister explained.

Draft legislation addressing this stream will follow the red tape removal agenda closely, Mr Jones said, with conversations still said to be taking place on the exact look of super's expanded advisory remit. Debate, he noted, is particularly taking place around the education standards superannuation workers offering advice may need to have.