In the closing session of the Financial Planning Association’s annual conference last week Garry Weaven, Industry Funds Management chair, called on delegates to ‘get real’ and admit that the real reason industry funds don’t make it onto dealer group approved product lists is because they don’t charge commissions.

In a session with Barry Lambert, Count chief executive officer, billed as ‘The Main Event’, Weaven disputed Lambert’s reason – a lack of sufficient research on the funds- for Count not offering industry funds. “Its not rocket science to be able to research and know fairly well what an industry fund is,” Weaven said. Weaven said it was the system, rather than the planners themselves, that was the problem. “The problem is the fees are not related to the advice,” he said. In a heated session Weaven fielded questions, and heckles, from the floor and said industry funds would continue to advertise as long as they remained absent from approved product lists. “We would simply say we have some great funds that don’t get recommended…we’re going to keep telling people that,” he said. He also called for a standardisation of fees.