The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) has revealed plans to involve members in its lobbying efforts with the federal government to attain better outcomes for the industry on a range of issues.
The AFA said those issues included the implementation of the financial services royal commission recommendations, the treatment of commissions and the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) education requirements.
“We will have a new government relations strategy that will involve everyone and that’s going to involve you,” AFA chief executive Philip Kewin told delegates during the Sydney leg of the industry body’s 2019 National Roadshow.
“So we will empower you to meet with your local members [of parliament], give the right messages, build the relationship, so constantly you will have the right message for your local member so they understand what you do, how many people you employ and how many clients you look after.”
AFA policy and professionalism general manager Phil Anderson said the pack enabling members to engage with their local elected officials is yet to be issued.
“We have a lot of members who have been actively engaging with their local members anyway so this is about taking it from patches to making it more comprehensive and right across the sector,” Anderson said.
“To get sensible outcomes on all of [the issues] it’s important to engage with politicians across the board and it’s when someone sits down in front of them and says ‘this is me, this is the sort of business I run, these are the clients I have, they all work and live in your electorate and these are the consequences of what’s happening here’, [they listen].”
Kewin described the coalition’s election victory as a good result for the financial services sector and said the AFA will continue its dialogue on behalf of the industry at the higher levels with the newly appointed cabinet ministers.
“We now have two ministers [to deal with]; we have an assistant minister, [Assistant Treasurer] Michael Sukkar, and [Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology] Jane Hume and we will start immediately our discussions and our dialogues with them and we’ll pick up the positive conversations we had with [former assistant treasurer] Stuart Robert,” he said.
“[So] we will have conversations at the government level, but we want you to have those conversations at a member level.”
