Advice bodies emulate industry funds on lobbying

The major financial planning and accounting organisations have stolen a page out of the industry funds playbook and intend producing both joint and individual submissions to the Treasury Quality of Advice Review.

The approach means that the Treasury will be able to discern the key points upon which all the organisations are agreed and the areas in which there are points of difference.

And it appears that those points of difference reflect the nature of their constituencies rather than any deeply entrenched philosophical differences.

A case in point is the Stockbrokers and Investment Advisers Association (SIAA) opposition to the individual adviser licensing approach supported by the Financial Planning Association (FPA) and the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA).

SIAA chief executive, Judith Fox said her organisation’s opposition to individual licensing should not be taken as suggesting it was not appropriate for financial advisers but, rather, that it was inappropriate for the stockbroking sector.

The SIAA previously pointed out that while many financial advice firms are small businesses, stockbroking and investment advice firms are generally large businesses which are becoming larger.

The differences likely to be explained by other organisations in their submissions are expected to cover off the status of specialist life/risk advisers and the manner in which they have felt disadvantaged by the “one-size-fits-all” approach inherent in the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) regime.

The industry superannuation funds have become adept at getting their message across to policy-makers by developing both joint and individual submissions which will see both Industry Super Australia (ISA) file a joint submission covering a range of funds, while the individual funds fiel their own submissions alongside Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees.

The FPA, AFA, SIAA, SMSG Association and the accounting associations have been meeting regularly to discuss the key issues as part of their preparation of submissions for the Quality of Advice Review.