FAAA seeks ‘advice ambassadors’ to explain profession to pollies

The Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) has launched a pre-election initiative that would see members serve as advice ambassadors to advocate on behalf of the financial advice profession.

Members interested in taking on the role can self-nominate, with the FAAA providing support for the ambassadors to liaise directly with federal politicians and explain the financial advice process and the value it adds to everyday Australians, as well as discussing needed reforms on financial advice regulation.

“We are seeking highly involved FAAA members who feel comfortable engaging with federal parliamentarians, and we want advisers from all walks of life and all business models to participate – reflecting the diversity and professionalism of our members,” FAAA chief executive Sarah Abood said.

“These FAAA advice ambassadors will meet with politicians to keep them abreast of the issues in the financial advice industry. We also want them to explain the benefits of financial advice to everyday Australians to help them overcome cost-of-living pressures and to build wealth over time.”

The FAAA said it would help support these ambassadors to set up meetings with politicians and supply relevant information and support material to aid in the engagement process.

“We’re asking for our members to help our profession put our best foot forward with the new Parliament that will soon be formed, engaging with government, opposition and the crossbench to showcase the fantastic work financial planners do to help support Australians achieve their best financial futures,” Abood said.

The CEO had flagged the association’s intent to engage with politicians in December, noting on an FAAA webinar that the upcoming federal election was “looming large” and the body is currently focusing on refining its strategy.

According to Abood at the time, the FAAA was 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.

Earlier this month, the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) took a more partisan approach, throwing its support behind the Coalition and shadow financial services minister Luke Howarth.

It’s a stark contrast to the scene just three years ago before the previous federal election, which saw the AIOFP back Labor and Stephen Jones as a much-needed replacement for the former government.

“There is no sugar-coating the last three years under Minister Jones, it has been bitterly disappointing except for the 10-year rule legislation,” AIOFP executive director Peter Johnston said.

“The minister’s two fundamental mistakes were allowing his office to be captured by the Treasury bureaucrats as his key staff from the outset and giving too much respect to the QAR process by allowing [Michelle] Levy to complete the final report.

“We think QAR was half right and the rest flawed, it literally wasted three years of debate and pontification with further risk compliance initiated by the minister, with the ridiculous CSLR developments, the ‘hot mess’ just got hotter and out of control.”

According to Johnston, a minority government would be “disastrous” for the advice community, as the likely result would be reliance on the Greens or Teal independents.

“The left-wing tendencies of both groups will be a threat to undoing the compliance ‘mess’ and the risk commission issue,” he said.

“It should be noted that a recent analysis of voting patterns over the past three years showed that the Teals all voted with the Greens on at least 75 per cent and some over 90 per cent of the time. These small opportunist groups have no choice but to be very selfish by nature, they will literally do anything to be politically relevant.”