The federal government has hinted it may consider making changes to the implementation date of its Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms.
A spokesman for Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten said while the government remains steadfast in its interest in the FOFA reforms, it intends to maintain talks with industry on the execution of reform.
“We remain committed to our reforms and will continue to discuss the details around implementation with the industry,” he said.
A bigger concern was the Coalition’s failure to support higher concessional caps for people over the age of 50, which start in six months time, he added.
“Their policies on superannuation keep changing, but it is unfair of the Coalition not to provide certainty on this important issue.”
Shorten’s comments come in response to calls by the Coalition for the government to delay the implementation date of FOFA.
“I really do call on Bill Shorten to make an announcement very soon that the implementation date for FOFA will be delayed, or to facilitate a seamless transition,” the opposition assistant treasury spokesman Mathias Cormann told a Liberal party fundraising luncheon in Sydney on Friday.
Cormann said comment from Shorten on the timing of FOFA, particularly in light of a number of amendments to the reforms, would provide the industry with a degree of certainty.
Cormann said the Coalition intends to push back against the Labor government on a number of reform elements.
“We will be moving amendments to the [FOFA] legislation to remove the opt-in requirement,” he said.
“We will still keep an open mind on the final make-up of the best interest duty but we do support the principle of having a statutory best interest duty enshrined in corporate law, an act which we think is sensible. That was actually one of the recommendations of the Ripoll inquiry, unlike opt-in which wasn’t.”
Cormann said the Coalition has also taken issue with intra-fund advice which it believes demonstrates a certain “inconsistency” within government policy.
“The government is sort of saying to advisers, ‘You’re charging all these fees for services you don’t provide; all these people are out there paying for advice they don’t get’. We would question that,” he said.
“We should continue to focus between now and whenever the legislation is open to work with in the house of representatives we should continue to focus on all of the Independents and make sure that we explain the policy case against the bad bits of FOFA.”
