Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation Bill Shorten will retain his portfolios, avoiding any changes to his responsibilities after Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s cabinet reshuffle on Friday.
Shorten’s unchanged position comes as Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) chair Bernie Ripoll and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer David Bradbury were handed new roles.
Bradbury was promoted to Assistant Treasurer and will also move into the newly-created position of Minister Assisting for Deregulation.
Ripoll replaces Bradbury as the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer.
“I am keen to serve and utilise the experience I have gained through the past 14 years as a member of the House of Representatives in my electorate of Oxley,” Ripoll said.
Bradbury, who worked on a number of significant reforms in the areas of corporate law, consumer and competition policy and financial literacy, said he was looking forward to continuing to being involved in strengthening Australia’s economy.
“I look forward to working with the Prime Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Finance and Deregulation and my Ministerial and Parliamentary colleagues to ensure that we continue to have a strong economy that delivers for working Australians,” Bradbury said.
According to the industry’s association chiefs, with Shorten retaining his portfolios it will provide the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) and Stronger Super reforms with the consistency needed to see the reforms through.
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia chief executive Pauline Vamos is pleased with Shorten’s continuity and Bradbury’s new role as the Assistant Treasurer has strong connections to the superannuation industry.
However, Vamos said she was concerned about Ripoll standing down as PJC chair.
“We’ve got three hearings which have yet to produce their reports. We are hoping that somebody like Senator Nick Sherry will agree to chair, even if it’s just on the interim basis to get it finalised so we can get some regulatory certainty,” she told InvestorDaily.
Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) chief executive Richard Klipin said regulatory consistency is vital for the industry.
“All the reforms in the industry have [been] carried by Minister Shorten with Treasury and the regulators so there’s now been a consistency of leadership for a number of months,” Klipin said.
“That will no doubt continue through to the passing of the legislation.”
Klipin said the AFA welcomes the promotion to the new appointments of both Ripoll and Bradbury and looks forward to working with them constructively.
“From an AFA point of view, having confidence in ministers and parliamentary secretaries who actually understand the industry is important.”
FPA chief executive Mark Rantall said consistency is good for both reform implementation and modifying FOFA as it stands.
“At the end of the day, we don’t want to start again,” Rantall said.
“We’ll continue to engage government on both the positive aspects of the FOFA reforms but also on the aspects that aren’t in consumers’ best interest.”
