QAR draft legislation timeline pushed back

Speaking at the AFR Super and Wealth Summit via video on Tuesday morning, Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones once again insisted that the first stream of the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) draft legislation is close at hand.

“We’ve charted three chunks to work because everyone in the industry is very aware of this is just a pragmatic way of approaching a very large problem,” Mr Jones said.

“The first chunk of work, we hope to be out with some draft [legislation] in the very, very, very near future so that people will be able to consult on the technical detail of what we’ve decided from a policy point of view to do.”

This represents a delay from the minister’s previous comments.

In an exclusive conversation with ifa earlier this month, Mr Jones said draft legislation on the first stream of the government’s QAR response should be made public by the end of October.

“I hope to have some draft legislation within the month so that we can pore over that, just to make sure it’s technically correct, and get it into Parliament first up next year,” Mr Jones told ifa.

He explained that the government has stress tested “a bunch” of the recommendations made under stream one – recommendations he has referred to as “red tape reduction” focused.

The second tranche, which centres on retirement income, is the “next cab off the rank”, the minister disclosed to ifa.

“We’re doing all of these things in parallel, but it’s as simple as this. You got a tube about that fat, and if you try to squeeze everything through it at once, nothing will pass through. So, that’s the tube of Parliament and the policymaking process. So, I’ve been very pragmatic,” Mr Jones said.

“What can we get through? What’s ready to go? What’s not ready to go? And let’s try and move these things through in a logical fashion.”

At the AFR summit on Tuesday, Mr Jones stressed that while there has been no draft legislation released, the government has been “engaged in deep consultation around the scope, the training and competency, and charging arrangements for advice to be provided” within superannuation funds.

“We’re well advanced in our project and government has got some policy decisions to make in the very near future as well, with a view to having some concrete stuff for funds, consumers and others to pore over in technical detail and legislative detail in the first quarter of next year.

“So, we want to push this along really quickly, because you can’t say we’ve got a 5-million-person problem and then be dragging your feet on a big part of the solution to that problem.”

Mr Jones added: “We’ve got in parallel to those two jobs of work, other work going on in the insurance sector, in the banking sector, around other parallel advice work ... a hell of a lot of work going on.”