The Albanese Government is committed to ensuring Australians have access to high quality and affordable financial advice.
Today, the Government is releasing the first tranche of legislation for its Delivering Better Financial Outcomes package of reforms. This package cuts onerous red tape that adds to the cost of advice with no benefit to consumers.
Releasing this legislation delivers on the Government’s commitment outlined in its ‘Roadmap for financial advice reform‘ to develop legislation through 2023.
The draft legislation in this first tranche adopts half of the recommendations of the Quality of Advice Review, including:
- Recommendation 7 – Clarifying the legal basis for superannuation trustees paying a member’s financial advice fees from their superannuation account, and associated tax consequences.
- Recommendation 8 – Consolidating different ongoing fee consent documents into one simplified document.
- Recommendation 10 – Allowing more flexibility in how financial services guides are provided.
- Recommendations 13.1 to 13.5 – Clarifying that monetary or non‑monetary benefits given by a client are not conflicted remuneration, along with the removal of consequential exceptions.
- Recommendations 13.7 to 13.9 – Strengthening transparency and protections for consumers by introducing written consent requirements for consumers before they purchase an insurance product that will result in a commission payment.
All interested parties are invited to provide feedback on the draft legislation. Consultation closes on 6 December 2023.
As promised in the roadmap, the Government will also announce its final position on the outstanding recommendations of the Quality of Advice Review before the end of the year, with further legislation to be released in 2024.
The Government has engaged in deep consultation with industry and consumer representatives on how to expand the availability and affordability of retirement income advice, and the legislative changes needed to support this.
