Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Financial Services. How is the Albanese Labor government helping Australians access affordable, high-quality financial advice and cleaning up the mess in the advice industry left by the Liberals and Nationals?

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I start by acknowledging the tremendous contribution that the member for Gilmore brings to this parliament in the work that she does. She brings a depth of experience as a former dairy famer, small-business owner and teacher and as a passionate advocate for the people of the South Coast and the Shoalhaven.

She is right. The government inherited a mess in the area of financial advice. We saw financial adviser numbers absolutely in freefall. Ten thousand left the industry on that government's watch. They had a huge gap. People were seeking financial advice and couldn't access it, couldn't afford it. They had regulation after regulation that was providing red tape but not consumer protection, and, in the area of the transition to a professionalisation of the service, layer upon layer upon layer of mess. Is there any wonder that 10,000 professional financial advisers left the industry?

This government is going to clean up the mess that the other mob left us, and we have started this week. This morning I introduced legislation into the parliament to help smooth the professional transition and ensure that experienced advisers can stay within the industry—a proposition that was put and ignored by that mob over there.

We've also announced our response to the Quality of advice review, and I can advise the House that we're adopting 14 of the 22 recommendations. There will be three streams of work that proceed from this. First, we will be removing that red tape that adds no consumer protection from financial advisers. It's something that this mob could have done but refused to do. It means that professional financial advisers will be able to get on with doing their job without unnecessary red tape.

But our priority's in stream 2, I've got to say. Five million Australians are either at or approaching retirement with more money than ever before, because of Labor's transformative superannuation reforms. The average Australian is retiring with $200,000 in retirement. Every single dollar was opposed by that mob over there. What they need is access to information and advice, and we're going to enable them to get it from there superannuation fund.

This has been well received by the industry and by consumer groups. The Financial Services Council has said this: 'The government is right to prioritise its stream 1 reforms, which will lower the cost of providing financial advice and improve consumers' experience.' Choice, the consumer body, has said this: 'We welcome the federal government's sensible and measured approach to improving consumer outcomes.' The Financial Advice Association has welcomed the reforms as well.