The Australian political landscape has entered unchartered waters

The Australian political landscape has entered unchartered waters. The rise of One Nation and its current trajectory should give voters the choice of 3 major parties in most seats at the next federal election.

As a consequence, this dynamic is predicted to create a record number of marginal seats around the nation, an attractive opportunity to capitalise on for those seeking policy change and influencing preferred outcomes.

It is very clear the CSLR/MIS issue is a deadly threat to the future of the Adviser Profession and the cost of advice for Consumers going forward. Recent history demonstrates the AIOFP took advantage of the political situation in 2021 – 2002 with implementing the Educating Provider Pathway legislation with bipartisan support, Frydenberg’s demise in the seat of Kooyong and the Tim Wilson 2025 result in the seat of Goldstein against the Teals.

We see a similar opportunity to capitalise on with the current political dynamics.

The other unusual political aspect is the current intense pressure around policy discussion so far out from the 2028 election, this level of discourse normally happens well within 12 months of the election raising the question of whether the Government will call an early election in mid – late 2027.

The AIOFP has an obligation to its members and the wider Adviser community to address the real and exceedingly dangerous threats the CSLR/MIS pose to the Adviser Profession’s survival and the cost of advice.  

We have decided to approach it from three different directions –

• The first is a politically aggressive tactic with encouraging Advisers to keep their client base educated on why the cost of advice is forever increasing and the consequences and likelihood of the CSLR/MIS costs being passed back to them. Getting clients to advise their local Federal member that they will seek assistance from their Adviser on who they should be NOT voting for at the next election will put all Politicians on notice that the adviser/client relationship is commercially and politically strong.
• The second strategy is to construct a paper that clearly illustrates why the CSLR/MIS policy is unfair and its consequences on Consumers and the Adviser Profession. This will be done in conjunction with Dr Mark Bowler – Smith, a former UK based Financial Adviser and Law Professor at Deacon University in Melbourne, it will be  distributed to all Politicians, Canberra Bureaucrats and stakeholders.
• The third initiative is to directly and intensely lobby Minister Mulino, Shadow Minister Kevin Hogan and the new Shadow Treasury Spokesperson for One Nation Barnaby Joyce on the unfairness of the CSLR/MIS legislation. The current political environment with the ALP and Coalition showing severe concern about the rise of One Nation, it may just create a triple bipartisan opportunity to [ideally] pause the current CSLR position, include MIS from the outset and retrospectively. We are currently responding to the Minister’s recent request for views on the CSLR ‘waterfull framework’ proposal.

A very concerning market trend is the decision by large AFSL Dealer Groups [DG] to join as members of the institutionally funded Financial Services Council [FSC]. The FSC is a highly successful lobbyist group with many victories over the past 20 years including LIF, FASEA, Grandfathered Revenue ban and the CSLR MIS exemption – unfortunately all against the best interests of the Adviser Profession and Consumers.

This period is referred as the horror years for the Adviser Profession.

Considering the FSC funding and Board numbers are heavily dominated by Institutional interests and most of their political strategies are devised and implemented at the Executive level, this renders the DG faction essentially irrelevant and powerless within the FSC structure.

Unfortunately for the Adviser Profession, the DG’s only real political value for the FSC is to convince Canberra that they represent  Financial Adviser interests. Based on outcomes over the past 20 years mentioned above, this  is clearly not the case and should not be welcomed by the Adviser Profession.

Please access the FSC website and go directly to the Director and Management profiles [bypassing the fluffy promotional stuff] and you will get the picture on who they represent.

Google suggests around 3,250 Advisers are licensed back through the current FSC member Dealer Groups giving them significant power in Canberra to represent the Adviser Profession. These groups are Count, WT, Entireti, Findex, Infocus, Otivio, and Rhombus who appear to consider themselves to be ‘Financial Instituions’, not Adviser focused.

In political terms, these groups are giving away their Advisers political capital to the Institutional lobby in Canberra, a very dangerous outcome when you consider the horror years of FPA/AFA cooperation with the FSC.

We are urging the Advisers involved with these 7 groups to actively band together and question why Management is involved with an Institutionally focused and funded organisation and prove to them why it is in the best interests of the Adviser Profession and themselves.

If a satisfactory response is not received, there are plenty of other DG’s who put Adviser welfare first and consider the FSC to be a foe not a friend of the Adviser community.