The head of the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) and Allens partner Michelle Levy will speak at this year’s SMSF Association Technical Summit later this month addressing the government’s response to the review’s final report.
Levy’s appearance at the summit will be her first public commentary on the report, which was given to government on 16 December 2022 and publicly released on 8 February 2023. The government responded to the report on 13 June when it stated it would adopt 14 of 22 recommendations, mainly focused on retirement savings and the provision of advice by superannuation funds.
Levy will speak as part of panel that will include SMSFA chief executive Peter Burgess, Financial Service Council executive director – policy and advocacy Spiro Premetis and BT Financial Group head of financial literacy and advocacy Bryan Ashenden.
To date Levy has said she is disappointed with the government’s response as the recommendations yet to be accepted address the issues of accessibility to advice and improving its quality.
“Other industry participants have been more critical of the government’s response arguing that the decision by the Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, to only accept 14 of the 22 recommendations ‘in full or in principle’ will fail to improve the quality of accessibility of advice for the millions of Australians who need it,” Burgess noted.
He added Levy’s forthright views and those of the other panellists will should result in “a lively and informative technical session that will be of enormous interest and benefit for all the SMSF specialists attending the summit”.
“The Association always strives to make the Technical Summit topical and stimulating and having Michelle on this panel is in keeping with this tradition.”
Levy will speak on day one of the two day summit which takes place on the Gold Coast from July 26-27.
