The Federal Government is continuing negotiations with the Opposition aimed at achieving further "non-contentious" refinements to the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) legislation.
The Government's work has been confirmed by the Minister for Finance and Acting Assistant Treasurer, Senator Mathias Cormann who told a Money Management breakfast today that he was hopeful it ‘might be possible to reach consensus on non-contentious technical improvements'.
"Discussions will be continuing into the new year and there will be further announcements on that front," he said.
Cormann said the Government's FOFA changes had been impact by the events within the Palmer United Party but also made clear that the financial planning industry had an obligation to rebuild trust with consumers.
"The challenge remains, as it has been for a number of years, to work to continue to rebuild trust in the financial advice industry," he said.
"Financial planners and advisers help people maximise people's wealth but, in doing so, you are dealing with other people's money and it is important and appropriate to have a robust regulatory system in place and when things go wrong important to step back and consider what happened and why it happened and improve the system to ensure the bad things don't happen again," Cormann said.
However he said there needed to be clarity about what needs fixing and hot it was to be fixed.
"To make change for the sake of change and without tangible consumer benefits is not in the interests of Australians who need to be able to affordably access advice," Cormann said. "We need to strike a balance between consumer protections and access to affordable advice. "
