Associations urge advisers to target marginal electorates

Speaking on a Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) webinar on Wednesday, chief executive Sarah Abood said the upcoming federal election is “looming large” and the body is currently focusing on refining its strategy.

According to Abood, the FAAA is looking into how it wants to engage with not only both major parties, but “critically” the crossbench MPs around “policies in our area, and the really critical things that our profession needs to see in order to better help consumers”.

“We need a real focus, not just on the Coalition and Labor, but of course the Teals, the Greens, and independents that will have most likely a very big impact on what policies the next Parliament is able to implement,” she said.

Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) executive director Peter Johnston is also continuing the AIOFP’s focus on marginal seats, telling members that advisers need “political ‘friends’ in Canberra”.

In a letter to members, Johnston said one such electorate is Goldstein, which was previously held by Liberal member Tim Wilson before he lost to Zoe Daniel in the last election’s “Teal wave”.

“Our Profession needs intelligent informed political ‘friends’ in Canberra regardless of their political preference that understands our profession, Tim certainly qualifies with currently completing his PhD in Economics and general knowledge of our industry,” Johnston said.

“I met with Tim yesterday to discuss what the advice community can do to assist his campaign. Tim would appreciate us conducting lunch/dinner meetings in his electorate from late January where he will be our guest speaker and we invite along members/key clients and VIP influencers from the local area to interact with.”

He pushed for any AIOFP members within the Goldstein electorate to “support of these types of activities that can make a big difference forging relationships that assists our cause going forward”, adding that the association plans to do “similar things in other seats around the country”.

Abood also said the FAAA would look to engage members in its election campaign, though did not call out any specific electorates at this stage.

“We saw the success of member involvement in CSLR, and there's no doubt that it had a huge impact. So, we are looking at that and that will be something that we'll be communicating with [members] early in the new year, and probably looking to get expressions of interest from those that would like to be directly involved, and what would that mean?” she said on the webinar.

“In part, it would be letter writing again, but also literally meetings with your local [candidates]. They're really important. Our members are running really great small businesses, pretty much in every electorate around the country. The strategy is around looking at other particular electorates where we really want to make more impact. Are there ones that are contestable, that we think there could be a high chance of a change of member in that seat.”

While the election date is still unknown, with possibilities ranging from March to May, Abood stressed that it is “critically important”.

The AIOFP in particular has been continuously vocal on the need for a strategy in marginal seats, urging advisers to put pressure on marginal seats and tell politicians their “vote is for lease, not sale”.