The passing of the Corporations Amendment (Financial Advice Measures) Bill 2015 in the Senate today represents the defeat of the Coalition’s worst attacks on consumer protections.

Today the Opposition has declared victory over the Government’s proposed amendments to Labor’s Future of Financial Advice package, which would have seen:

• The requirement for financial advisers to act in the “best interest” of clients removed;
• Advisers allowed to continue to charge fees indefinitely, without receiving consent from their clients; and
• Conflicted remuneration allowed on general advice and certain types of personal advice.

Labor’s FoFA reforms were introduced in the wake of collapses of Storm Financial and others, and after Bernie Ripoll’s important Parliamentary inquiry into financial advice, products and services.

The stripped-down financial advice legislation makes minor technical amendments, many of which had already been included in the Corporations Amendment (Revising Future of Financial Advice) Regulation 2014 and the Corporations Amendment (Financial Advice) Regulation 2015.

Labor is pleased to see an end to the chaos that was the Government’s handling of this Bill and welcomes their agreement to tap the mat and not attempt to inflict further damage on the consumer protections in the Future of Financial Advice package.