The CEO of the AIOFP, Peter Johnston, shares his thoughts on the election.

Dear Members, it’s now at that stage of the Electoral cycle where ALL Politicians are relying upon the poor memory of voters and/or ‘blind party loyalty’ regardless of their actions during time in power or opposition.

The AIOFP Board and Management role is to always act in our member’s best interests without fear or favor by dichotomizing the actions of all Politicians and making a call who the Advice community should or should not support at any election.

We believe it is time for the advice community and their clients to start flexing their considerable political muscle potential by demanding action of what they want. Sitting on the fence allows you to get shot by both sides.

It also should be noted that the AIOFP are not sycophants that supports everything the Government of the day puts up, we will not agree with issues unless they are in our members and their client’s best interests.

We are unashamedly representative of only our member’s needs, not a divided industry with disparate interests.

Whether we like it or not, the electoral landscape is a ‘2 horse race’ with the independents and minor parties trying to take ground from the Coalition and ALP. Under the current circumstances we can therefore only look at the ‘scoreboard’ of events over the 9 – year term of this Morrison Government and what the ALP has done from opposition.

Some think we are ‘in bed’ with the ALP which is not correct. The only group we disagree with is the Coalition, we have detested their agenda against Advisers since 2014/5 and have been actively doing something about it since 2019.

In a 2 horse race you need to make a call on who will best support the plight of our members. Based on the past actions and recent inaction from the Morrison Government they certainly don’t deserve to represent our Members/clients’ interests in Canberra based on the facts.

However, up until 2018 the ALP have not been exactly supportive from Opposition but the ‘hatchet’ job performed on the Advice Community with unfair product failure responsibility blame over the decades badly tainted our image across the political spectrum with most politicians having a jaundice view of our profession.

Thankfully, this has now substantially changed for the better.

We have been impressed with how Shadow Stephen Jones has moved from a sceptical view of our industry three years ago to one of support. He has taken the time to analyze the facts and concluded Advisers deserve a high level of respect, have been poorly treated over the past 9 years and he wants to do something about it.

We sent an email to all Politicians last May 26^th 2021 titled ‘WHAT THE ADVICE COMMUNITY WANTS and CONSUMERS NEED’, this also went directly to Senator Hume’s adviser. Unfortunately like all other requests over the years to moderate their legislative agenda, it falls on deaf ears with the successive Coalition Ministers.

We have been pushing these amendments with both sides of politics and the following response tells the story:

• Ms Hume has only been reactive to what the ALP have proposed around the 10 – year education proposal, not proactive to amending any other rules. This strongly indicates they will maintain the same agenda post – election if they retain power. The ‘Michelle Levy’ December review is a ploy to avoid accountability until post – election and Ms Hume has given no guarantee to accept the recommendations anyway.
• Mr Jones has shown his intent with the 10-year education rule proposal and we expect him to make further policy announcements shortly that should please most.

Our recommendation to the Advice community and their clients is quite clear, look at the scoreboard of the Coalition actions and if you do not like what you see, put them last on the ballot sheet, It does not matter who you put at the top!