The coalition government believes there is significant scope to expand Australia’s profile as a financial services industry in the Asia Pacific region.
Opposition assistant treasury spokesman Mathias Cormann told an audience at the ‘No More Practice’ live event in Sydney that greater collaboration between the coalition government and the industry would help the sector expand “beyond our borders”.
“We don’t have much interaction, there’s not much border trade in financial services,” Cormann said yesterday.
“There is significant scope, I believe, for us if we work together well for us to really grow this industry beyond our borders.”
He said the findings of the Johnson Report provided a “clear roadmap” as to how Australia can build its presence offshore.
“There is a clear roadmap that has been laid out by Mark Johnson and the Johnson Report and some of the things that need to be done in terms of reducing some of the regulatory barriers and dealing with some of the tax uncertainty related issues,” he said.
“The current government has gone slow on that in our view and we think there is a real need to recommit to the path that the Johnson report laid out in terms of progressing and making Australia a genuine financial services hub in the region.”
While Cormann acknowledged Australia faces some “competitive challenges” in the Asian region, he said no progress will be made unless regulatory changes are adopted.
“Clearly we face some competitive challenges in the region when it comes to that sort of aspiration,” he said.
“But unless we are actually serious about making the sorts of changes to our regulatory set up that are required then we’re never going to get there.”
Earlier this month, Cormann called on the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation Bill Shorten to implement recommendations contained in the Johnson Report.
“The coalition continues to support the principles of the Johnson Report recommendations, just as we have supported other initiatives in government and in opposition that help to build the strength and success of the Australian financial services sector,” Cormann said at the time.
“Yet the government has been very slow to act – delaying the opportunity for stronger growth in the Australian financial services sector.
“An Australian government genuinely committed to helping make Australia into a financial services hub for the region would be more focused on implementing the Johnson recommendations in a more timely fashion.”
In late 2008, the Labor government commissioned the Australian Financial Centre Forum’s report on Australia as a Financial Centre (the Johnson Report).
