Following its landslide victory in Saturday’s election, Labor will have the opportunity to continue its path to advice reform. But based on pre-election surveys, its commitment to the cause is ‘complicated’.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will return for a consecutive second term – the first Australian PM to do so since John Howard in 1998, and the first consecutive win since Howard in 2004.
Former financial services minister Stephen Jones, who retired at the election, pledged on multiple occasions that the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes legislation, acting on the Quality of Advice Review recommendations, had full support of his Cabinet colleagues, including in one of his last industry appearances at the Professional Planner Advice Policy Summit in February.
But the Financial Advice Association’s federal election hub – which rates candidates along five categories – largely has “it’s complicated” as a response to Labor candidates on four of the five criteria. Much of the FAAA survey results from the Coalition and Labor was based on overall party support rather than individual candidates.
The fifth option, “cutting red tape” has a firm “doesn’t support”, despite Stephen Jones’s pledge the party was as committed to advice reform as he is.
Labor won 86 seats in the lower house, gaining nine more than its win in 2022, with most pre-election predictions anticipating a Labor minority government or slim majority at best.
“Australians have chosen a majority Labor government,” Albanese said in his victory speech.
But the election saw a first with the opposition leader unable to retain his seat. Peter Dutton was unable to hold the seat of Dickson, losing to Labor’s Ali France.
“Dickson had a one–term curse, it was only ever held for one term at a time, and we’ve held it for 24 years, which is an amazing achievement,” Dutton said in his concession speech. “We have a great party, and we will rebuild.”
Although there was the potential for Dutton to lose what was a highly-contested seat in 2022, what has been unexpected were the defeats of fellow Queensland MPs, those being shadow Minister for Financial Services Luke Howarth in Petrie and Bert van Manen in Forde.
“I don’t think a lot of us had Petrie bookmarked tonight,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on ABC’s news coverage.
The loss of van Manen, a former adviser who has been in Parliament as the member of Forde, has seen Labor re-gaining the Queensland seat after the Coalition won it in the 2010 election.
The return of Tim Wilson is yet to be decided as he, at time of writing, is still in a close content to win his seat back from Teal Independent Zoe Daniel, who had won it from him in 2022.
Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor retained his seat of Hume, but Chalmers was happy to take a shot during ABC’s election night coverage, describing him as having “had a campaign that was just as bad if not worse” as his peers.
Superannuation had received more mainstream attention during the campaign, with fringe parties like Clive Palmer’s Trumpets of Patriots and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation pushing for more early access, but neither party made significant inroads.
Succession plans
It’s no real secret financial advice isn’t a mainstream election issue, despite Jones’s heavy campaigning to advisers in 2022, as well as Howarth and Taylor trying to court back the advice industry the past six weeks with promises of quick reforms.
However, the lack of positive reinforcement towards advice issues in the FAAA’s election hub puts the responses at odds with Jones’s belief his successor will carry on the commitment to advice reform.
Jones, who has now retired from Parliament, promised his Labor successor would be as committed to financial advice reform as he was – he who had promised to fix the “hot mess” of financial advice regulation three years ago.
His successor in the seat of Whitlam on the NSW south coast, disability advocate Carol Berry, won. It is yet to be known who will replace him as financial services and superannuation minister.
While Jones’s response had been lethargic – he had added a quick win early on by delivering his promised experience pathway – the slow and underwhelming response to the Quality of Advice Review hasn’t helped.
Feedback from the advice side of the industry has been that the promised red tape reductions have been underwhelming, and even neutralised by rising costs of regulatory levies from ASIC and the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort.
Congratulating the Prime Minister on his re-election victory, FAAA chief executive Sarah Abood reaffirmed the association’s commitment to collaborating on critical policy areas to improve the sustainability and accessibility of financial advice.
“One of the clearest messages from our members is that well-meaning but overly complex regulation has made financial advice harder to access and more expensive,” Abood says.
“We need to cut unnecessary red tape and ensure that advisers can focus on delivering great outcomes for their clients.”
But the association had also arguably put a lot of stock in Howarth’s shadow ministry, giving him top marks following its pre-election surveys.
