Super for housing idea a ‘detraction’ for Government

Pushing matters such as superannuation for housing detracted from serious financial issues during the pandemic, according to Stephen Jones.

Speaking at an industry event, Jones, shadow minister for financial services and superannuation, said he felt frustrated by the focus given to issues which would have previously been discarded.

“We didn’t need it and it detracted from serious policy debate that we needed to have. At a time when we should have been having serious debate, the whole bandwidth was being directed around the existence of superannuation as a whole.

“I found that incredibly disappointing because there were lost opportunities and things we could have done to make the economy stronger.”

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The idea of using super for housing had been pushed by MP Tim Wilson who argued Australians were being denied the opportunity to use their super to buy a first home.

He added the concept of early release of super was a correct idea but had also been “poorly administered” as people were not necessarily using their super for the intended purpose.

Meanwhile, he described the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA), which had now been taken over by ASIC since the start of the year, as a “slow train wreck”.

“The inflexibility, the incompetence, the unwillingness to listen to sound and reasonable arguments and even the implementation of bad decisions was poorly done.

“And it’s happening at a time when we have never been in greater need of financial advice.”

With this in mind, he maintained advisers with 10 years of experience or more should be allowed to continue to practice without taking extra education in order to prevent the exodus of advisers from the industry.

“We need these people in the industry, we shouldn’t be kicking them out the door at a time when Australians need financial advice.”