Treasury has confirmed that proposed intra-fund legislation would allow industry superannuation funds to charge members for advice whether individual members tap that advice or not, the opposition financial services spokesman has said.
Mathias Cormann made the comments in his address at the Association of Financial Advisers annual conference yesterday.
Cormann said the Senate estimates committee, of which he is a member, discussed the plan, part of the MySuper reform package, at its meeting last week.
“Treasury confirmed with us last week that, yes, the fees for intra-fund advice can be bundled into the administration fees, so they’re not going to be transparent, and the fees will be charged across the membership collectively, irrespective of whether the individual members access the advice or not,” he said.
He reiterated an accusation that Financial Services and Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten’s intra-fund advice plan in combination with his Future of Financial Advice reforms hurt advisers with small businesses in favour of union-run industry super funds.
“He is clearly acting as an agent for a particular segment of the market and, in my view, it’s against the interests of consumers,” he said.
“Why is Bill Shorten pursuing all this legislation that hurts financial advisers, who just happen to be small business advisers? That is not an appropriate way to run public policy.”
Meanwhile, Industry Super Network chief executive David Whiteley said advice was a basic service provided at an “incredibly modest cost”.
Whiteley said industry super funds, as well as retail and government funds, offered basic advice as a service to their members.
“The cost is incredibly modest. It’s an example of larger funds leveraging their scale to provide improved service to their members,” he said.
“It’s a huge benefit for members and it also means people have an opportunity to begin their advice journey.”
He said fund fees were readily available from any fund, but admitted the advice component of fees was presented as part of a single fee.
Asked whether industry funds were prepared to state advice fees separately if required to do so, he said: “All super funds will comply with the regulations.”
