Government moves to debate FOFA bill ahead of PJC report
The Federal Opposition will call on the support of the Independents in the House of Representatives to prevent the Government from bringing on debate around the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) bills before the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) has reviewed the legislation.
The Shadow Financial Services Minister, Senator Mathias Cormann, said he believed the Minister for Financial Services, Bill Shorten, was treating the Parliament with contempt by seeking to bring on the FOFA legislation before the PJC had even delivered its report.
The Government's forward program has indicated it will be seeking to debate the FOFA bills in the week beginning 13 February.
"If the Prime Minister is too weak to pull Bill Shorten into line over this, the Independents must work with us to stop the Government from brining FOFA and MySuper on for debate until after the PJC has had a chance to put its views on the bills to the Parliament," he said.
Senator Cormann said the PJC was not due to report until 29 February, and described the latest development as "just another illustration of Bill Shorten's incompetent, zigzag handling of FOFA all the way through".
"The reason we have parliamentary inquiries into legislation is so Parliament can have the benefit of their findings and recommendations before having to pass judgement on any particular bill," he said.
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