The Industry Super Network (ISN) has no justification for running its ‘compare the pair’ advertising campaign in the wake of the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) bills which passed the House of Representatives last week.
That was the bottom line for both the Financial Planning Association (FPA) and the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) during a Money Management roundtable held in the immediate aftermath of the passing of the FOFA bills.
FPA chief executive Mark Rantall noted that the ISN had stopped running the ‘compare the pair’ commercial recently and added, "I would hope never to see them again".
Rantall said that the withdrawal of the ISN advertising would be "a great indication of an olive branch enabling the industry to come together".
"I think everyone around this table agrees that we’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to evolve into a profession," he said. "Let’s take it seriously, let’s come together, let’s stop the bickering and let’s make it happen."
AFA chief executive Richard Klipin made a strong call for the ISN to stop its anti-financial planner advertising, noting the degree of politicisation that had entered the debate.
"The ISN have driven this debate and they have absolutely won out of this debate," Klipin said. "If you look at in political terms they have done a fabulous job of wedging the industry."
However, he said the industry players now needed to put down their swords and come together to talk about the things they had in common.
"In our view the pendulum swung too far over, but we’ve just come out of a weekend where the politics in Queensland has manifestly changed the Queensland landscape and perhaps the national landscape," Klipin said.
He said that what was undesirable was that every time a particular political party gained power there was a sense of retribution "and on that basis I put the call to the ISN to actually join in and join the entire marketplace rather than playing wedge politics".
