Parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer Chris Pearce has defended the government’s proposal not to include superannuation under the statement of advice (SOA) exemption for investments under $10,000, alluding to criticism already levelled at the government in the days following the proposal.
The FPA issued a statement last week when the government released the corporate and financial services regulations proposals paper. The association said it was disappointed about the proposal to exclude super advice from the materiality threshold for SOAs.
The decision to exclude super maintained consistency in government policy on super, Pearce told more than 2000 conference delegates at the FPA’s annual conference yesterday.
He suggested removing SOAs from super advice, even for smaller amounts, would contradict government campaigns to educate consumers on the importance of getting advice for superannuation, namely last year’s campaign with the introduction of super choice.
“In this campaign the government outlined the importance of getting financial advice on what is an important decision,” Pearce said.
“The choice of a superannuation fund has very significant long-term financial consequences even from when the first contributions are made.”
Pearce said he believed SOAs would ensure advice on the super decision was written down.
Pearce said the threshold proposal was a response to industry complaints that SOAs were preventing smaller investors from seeking advice, but the government had to balance protecting consumers on one hand with providing you with business on the other.
