Jones survives cabinet reshuffle

Following speculation that ministerial changes were on the way, on Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a raft of changes to the federal cabinet and broader ministry, which he said drew on the “strength and depth of the parliamentary Labor Party”.

The only change in the Treasury portfolio saw Clare O’Neil, who had been the subject of significant criticism in her previous role of home affairs minister, take over as Minister for Housing and Homelessness. O’Neil replaces Julie Collins, who is now Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and continues as Minister for Small Business.

However, Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones, himself a target of broad criticism from the advice sector over the rollout of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms and the growing levies on the profession, has avoided the shrapnel.

In a poll run on ifa, just 7 per cent of respondents said Jones was their preferred choice for Financial Services Minister.

His opposite number, Luke Howarth, fared considerably better, garnering just more than half the votes.

However, the most telling statistic from the poll is that about 42 per cent of financial advisers don’t want either of the current options to take charge of the portfolio.

It isn’t surprising that so few would be happy with the options being put forward by the major parties, with the scars of recent Coalition governments still fresh for many in financial advice, while the early optimism for a Labor government was snuffed out by inaction and rising costs.

The Quality of Advice Review (QAR) and the subsequent DBFO legislation held the much-publicised possibility of fixing the “hot mess” that had become of advice regulation, yet it took more than two years for even a few of the “quick wins” to be legislated.

Even those measures that received broad support were impacted by the changes to section 99FA of the SIS Act that held up the first DBFO bill, taking what should have been a positive for the government into a protracted fight.

Throw in the outcry over the ever-increasing Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) funding levy and the handling of the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR), and it’s not hard to see why advisers are dissatisfied.

Indeed, it feels like forever since financial advisers were happy with the minister overlooking the sector.

Perhaps that’s not unusual for any ministry – maybe every agriculture minister is uniformly hated by farmers.

However, given the complexity of the financial services space from a regulatory perspective, would it have made sense to make a change so close to an election?

For any flaws that advisers would rightfully point to, Minister Jones is undoubtedly the most experienced option on the table. It’s hard to see how drafting in someone unfamiliar with the space would have benefited the profession with less than a year to get up to speed.

On the other side, lack of experience hasn’t impacted Howarth’s popularity with the ifa readership. Though that could be a product of any alternative being better.

Regardless, the state of play for advisers now seems set in stone as the election approaches.