Annual fees for financial advisers' clients will not be made retrospective in the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms, according to Minister for Superannuation Bill Shorten.
Speaking at the FPA conference in Brisbane yesterday, Shorten said the association's representations had persuaded him that annual fees should "not be made retrospective".
Just as the FPA had convinced Shorten that compulsory opt-in should not be made retrospective, similarly he had seen that "simplicity is to be preferred" and that "we don't want you to have to re-invent the wheel".
The use of the term 'financial planner' was very contentious, Shorten acknowledged, with it being the topic of a discussion paper which would also address auditor registration, accountant exemption, and self-managed superannuation fund reform.
Shorten said the FPA had given him "the most influential counsel I've received" on the various reforms and that the association was "strong but sensible".
"The legal use of the term 'financial planner' was not on my agenda until the FPA raised it," he said.
"Leadership in a changing world is never served by telling people 'you don't have to change'. The FPA haven't agreed with each proposition, but (they) have tried to be constructive.
"Great nations do not remain great by staying where they are."
Shorten said Australians "implicitly understand" that they are "better off after they've dealt with a financial planner."
Previously, Australia had suffered the tyranny of distance, but now it had the advantage of adjacency to Asia where, by 2030, there would be 3 billion Asians in the middle class.
This presented the country with opportunities to "build a new world that was better than the old, and do it in proximity to Asia".
