The federal government has committed to providing full disclosure of its response to the final report submitted as part of the Quality of Advice Review, but it is one of the few details revealed regarding the next stages of the process, according to BT.
“The [Assistant Treasurer and] Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, has confirmed that he will not be providing any running commentary on recommendations. What he has said, however, is whatever the government decides [to do] about the review’s recommendations, he will produce a full response explaining why the government [has rejected or accepted] the proposals,” BT advice technical senior manager Sarah Conte told attendees of the BT Academy technical webinar held yesterday.
While Conte recognised the timeline to implementation of the recommendations resulting from the review is not yet known, she said the industry will unlikely have to wait very long for some action from the process to be taken.
“Minister Jones stated at a recent industry conference that the government does intend to move quickly on some obvious stuff [that will] remove things that [exist] in the name of consumer protection but in reality aren’t providing that, [but instead are resulting] in cost and red tape,” she noted.
“He’s also acknowledged other components of the reform will take more time to implement.”
According to Conte, the financial advice sector may see the government implement some of the suggested reforms to come out of the review as single packages.
“[This] could be more likely if those reforms are interconnected with one change dependent on another and so on,” she said.
She pointed out there was one other aspect to the government’s response to the Quality of Advice Review that has also been guaranteed.
“The government has stated [it does] intend to consult early next year with industry on any reforms that are put in place as [a result] of the review,” she said.
“So it may be some time before we see some meaningful reform take place.”
The final report from the Quality of Advice Review was submitted to the Albanese government on 16 December.
