Howarth continues pitch to advisers as Coalition support staggers

Right up until Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the federal election, the prevailing expectation was that the Coalition were the firm favourites to form government – a sentiment shared by betting sites and pollsters alike.

However, since the campaigns kicked off in earnest there has been a consistent shift away back towards the incumbent Labor Party.

With poll predictions proving far from infallible in recent years, it’s hard to argue the outcome is decided – particularly when it comes to the possibility of a minority government.

One of the few areas that the Coalition appears to be winning the election battle is in financial advice, and shadow financial services minister Luke Howarth has sought to maintain the positive messaging over reforms for the sector.

In a letter to Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) executive director Peter Johnston, Howarth reiterated the Opposition’s support for financial advisers – an industry he acknowledged has been “overburdened by the costs of excessive regulation and levies under successive governments”.

Many of the shadow minister’s pledges are ones he has made previously – from fully implementing the Quality of Advice Review’s recommendations to fixing the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) and setting a target of 30,000 financial advisers.

In the letter, Howarth said that this target would “frame our commitment to supporting your members and making financial advice a more attractive and sustainable career by reducing red tape and compliance costs”.

Importantly, he said, a Coalition government would seek to ensure that “any reforms to broaden who can provide advice do not undermine the role of fully qualified financial advisers and are competitively neutral”.

Also on the agenda is a broad commitment to cut costs, which would include reviewing ongoing fee arrangement obligations, including annual fee consent forms, and life insurance commission caps, with a “view to reducing red tape and aligning with international best-practice”.

Howarth added that the Coalition would create a “financial services deregulation taskforce” to simplify Australia’s corporations law and establish clear deregulation principles for all policy proposals.

“The Albanese Government promised it would fix the ‘hot mess’ of advice regulation and get costs down. Instead, costs have skyrocketed, and your industry has not been a priority,” Howarth said in his letter to the AIOFP.

“A Dutton Government will make advisers a priority and get the regulatory costs and levies they are being slugged with back under control.

“Please encourage your members to talk to their staff and clients about this letter and how these policies will help their businesses.

“I look forward to working with you to rebuild confidence and prosperity for financial advisers and planners across the country.”

The final push for adviser support follows the FAAA launching its election hub last week, which showed the Coalition and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party have largely said they will support most, if not all, of the pre-election FAAA’s asks.

Meanwhile, Labor and the Greens have, for the most part, said they either don’t support these initiatives, or their stance on them is “complicated’.

According to insights from the FAAA hub, it appears highly likely that the Greens would oppose meaningful changes for advisers.

Namely, a clear trend among both the Greens and Labor responses is a reluctance to commit to any of the five key FAAA proposals, with many outright rejecting efforts to reduce regulatory red tape.