Financial services welcomes experienced hand to portfolio

Nick Sherry

The Australian financial services industry will benefit from one of the Australian Labor Party’s most experienced frontbenchers, Senator Nick Sherry, having responsibility for superannuation and corporate law.

Sherry has been closely involved with the superannuation and financial services portfolio for most of the past eight years and was named on the new Labor Government’s frontbench yesterday — a move that was welcomed by most of the major financial services organisations.

Investment and Financial Services Association chief executive Richard Gilbert, in his capacity as chairman of the Finance Industry Council of Australia, said the agenda that would be pursued with the new Government included initiatives on taxation and financial sector regulation to reduce the cost of doing business in Australia and attract foreign investment.

For her part, the chief executive of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), Pauline Vamos, welcomed Sherry’s appointment and outlined ASFA’s policy agenda as including:

> improving retirement income adequacy through enhancement of the co-contribution scheme and introduction of soft compulsion for additional employee contributions;

> improving the regulatory framework by tackling the issue of lost members and duplicate accounts;

> easing the way funds do business by eliminating unnecessary red tape and simplifying the administration of accounts and contributions; and

> ensuring fund members are more engaged and informed by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of disclosure and advice.

She said ASFA would also be working with the Government to implement the recommendations set out in the First Home Savers Accounts proposal.

Vamos said, while separate from superannuation, ASFA understood that these accounts could potentially be offered by superannuation funds with similar conditions to that of existing superannuation accounts.