An invaluable offer of help from financial planners
It is to be hoped that the Minister for Financial Services, Bill Shorten, has noted the capacity of the financial planning industry to do good and to rally to the needs of Australians in times of adversity.
The Financial Planning Association’s (FPA’s) move to have its members provide pro bono planning services to those affected by Australia’s spate of recent natural disasters needs to be recognised as something conveying just as much value as the efforts of volunteer bush-fire firefighters or members of the State Emergency Service.
The simple facts of the matter are that when people lose their homes and their livelihoods as a result of a natural disaster, good financial planning advice represents a key element of the emotional and financial recovery process.
What also needs to be understood is that while the FPA has coordinated the delivery of the current round of pro bono advice in the wake of the current spate of disasters, it is not the first time the industry has acted in such a fashion, with many planners having frequently acted spontaneously to help their neighbours while seeking neither reward nor publicity for their actions.
All of which needs to be contrasted with the near-decade of quasi-political negative publicity directed towards the financial planning industry by a particular element within the industry funds sector.
Seemingly as a result of some of the negotiations and accommodations which were reached around the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) changes, the industry funds have, for the past eight months, modified their advertising, making it less directly critical of financial planners and advisers.
This, however, ignores the enormous amount of reputational damage inflicted during a near decade-long campaign.
With superannuation having been front and centre throughout much of the first weeks of election campaigning as the Government has toyed with how it might alter the tax settings for higher income earners, it ought to be possible for the major parties to find common ground on one issue – depoliticising superannuation.
Such a depoliticising of superannuation would, of necessity, require either amendments to the underlying legislation or greater policing of the sole purpose test to ensure that members’ funds could not be directed towards quasi-political lobby groups.
This ought not, of course, serve to impact funds transparently supporting groups such as the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees or the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, but it would raise questions about the funding status of the Industry Super Network (ISN).
Groups such as the ISN are perfectly entitled to prosecute their agendas, but the origins of their funding should be made fully transparent.
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