from FR - "amateurish", a good description of a lot of this govts actions so far.
The Coalition’s amateurish efforts to unwind Labor’s Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) laws have landed it in an awful political mess and bequeathed us a conflicted, contradictory and complex financial system. The new Senate will likely ensure the controversial regulations – which were introduced into Parliament on July 1 without a hint of a media release – will have a short half-life.
The CBA crisis helpfully highlights the problems that can arise when people try to push products while simultaneously offering consumers supposedly independent advice that is in their “best interests”.
The Coalition’s FoFA roll-back insanely enshrines these conflicts between customer-aligned “personal advice” services and the distinct product sales functions within big institutions.
The government has been duped into buying the argument that planners can be rewarded by employers for flogging products – a principle opposed by every planner I know – by the institutions that have bought or legally aligned (via licensing) up to 70 per cent of them. Yet in a post-FoFA world, conflicting planners, most of whom are hard-working, educated and ethical, is a big strategic mistake.
