Evidence provided to this week's Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) hearings reviewing the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) legislation has provided the Government with an opportunity to get the entire process back on track.
That is the assessment of Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) chief executive Richard Klipin, who said the PJC process had ensured that the industry's core messages with respect to FOFA and its impact on those who actually work in the financial services industry had been appropriately aired.
"What this week's public hearings have succeeded in doing is making clear which elements of FOFA are broadly supported and accepted by the industry and are capable of putting the process back on track," he said.
"The underlying intention of the FOFA process is sound but elements such as opt-in, annual fee disclosure and arbitrage around risk in superannuation have obscured the original objectives," Klipin said.
He said the PJC process had ensured an objective examination of the key issues and represented an opportunity for the Government to get the legislation back on track.
"What we witnessed in the PJC hearings this week was the replacement of backroom deals with a public and forensic examination of the key issues, and the message from the industry was remarkably consistent," Klipin said.
