The Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) has weighed into the Life Insurance Framework (LIF) debate causing ructions within the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA), urging advisers to support those wanting constitutional change within the AFA.
In an e-mail to members, AIOFP chief executive, Peter Johnston has supported the efforts of the so-called Life Insurance Consumer Group (LICG) and has described the moves to reject the LIF as being “about the advice community finally breaking the shackles of institutional manipulation at a political level and standing up for itself”.
He said that for too long the advice community had been ‘divided and ruled’ by the institutional lobby and now was not the time to back down.
“No one can recall the regulator ever publicly pushing for industry harmony over any specific issue and particularly a highly political one,” Johnston’s message said.
“This is a positive sign that our struggle is getting traction. The actions of the LICG has also greatly assisted the momentum for change. Their continual pressure on the AFA Board to finally admit they were wrong with supporting the FPA/FSC [Financial Planning Association/Financial Services Council] institutionally biased position and support what the majority of their adviser members want is welcomed and should be intensified.
“This pressure must be maintained to achieve change, retreating to our suppressed and manipulated past position should not be an option. We also consider ourselves to be helping consumers who will suffer over time from these changes. Any independently owned adviser resisting this should be viewed with suspicion about their motives. To be coerced back ‘into our box’ and be silenced should be strenuously resisted.”
Johnston also questioned whether the Federal Government had been receiving an accurate message about adviser support for the LIF, stating that “on four occasions in four different meetings we tried to convince the Ministers that the AFA/FPA had betrayed their adviser members”.
“What the Advice community should learn from this experience is that being a member of any entity/association that is infiltrated and dominated by any particular faction is a politically dangerous and a life threatening line to tread. The board and executive are duty bound to act in the best interests of the majority of their members and/or revenue source, it is that simple,” his e-mail message said.
“This then begs the question of why do advisers not only fund an entity that can work against them but let them use their membership credentials in Canberra to convince politicians that ‘they represent the industry’? It simply just does not make commercial or political sense for any adviser to fund and politically support any entity that can and will act against you at the critical times, and this, like the FOFA/FPA [Future of Financial Advice] manipulation is no doubt one of those critical times.”
