The federal government is under increased pressure to release draft legislation on financial advice and superannuation reforms as a growing number of industry participants unveil timetable details of the planned announcements.
Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) chief executive Pauline Vamos said Stronger Super legislation and the second tranche of the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms would be unveiled in mid-September.
“September is going to see the first tranches of FOFA come through, so we’ll see the first bits of FOFA come through in the first week of September,” Vamos said in a recent address to members.
“We’ll see another lot come through the third week. We’ll also start to see Stronger Super come through; we’ll start to see MySuper in particular. We will finally see where the government’s position is on that.”
Vamos is the second financial industry executive to announce the timetable following comments a few days earlier by FPA policy relations general manager Dante De Gori.
InvestorDaily had earlier reported that De Gori said Treasury had released the timing of the draft legislation at a peak consultation group meeting.
He said the first tranche of draft FOFA legislation would address best interest, opt-in and ASIC powers, and Financial Services and Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten’s second announcement would include the government’s position on conflicted remuneration.
Vamos said the mechanics of Parliament turning draft laws into final legislation signalled passage of both FOFA and Stronger Super in February.
“The way the legislation works is this: the first lot will go through the House of Reps during this sitting, the final legislation will go through the Senate in February. So we’re expecting the bulk of legislation around Stronger Super and FOFA to firm by early next year,” she said.
A spokesman for Shorten’s office reiterated a recent commitment to release the draft laws in the spring sitting of Parliament, but declined to elaborate.
“We remain committed to introducing the FOFA legislation in Parliament by the end of the year,” the spokesman said.
Vamos said ASFA also expected Shorten to make an announcement on Stronger Super in the last week of August.
“We have a pretty good idea what he’s going to say. In terms of MySuper, we will see some form of multiple pricing, there will be a transition period, there will be some sort of sunset period,” she said.
“We expect there’ll be some statement on life insurance commissions as we know. And auto-consolidation – it will be sort of a position but I think this is kind of halfway between current sector positions – but at least we will get some certainty.”
However, Shorten’s spokesman said the announcement was a bit further off.
“The government expects to respond to Paul Costello’s report into Stronger Super in the next several weeks,” he said.
