National supports adviser bill: Dalziel

The two big adviser associations have been ticked off by the Minister of Commerce, Lianne Dalziel, after they outlined their concerns about the latest proposals to regulate advisers.

Thursday, August 21st 2008, 5:32AM
The chief executives of the Professional Advisers Association, and the Institute of Financial Advisers, Dave McMillan and David Hutton, yesterday, outlined their concerns over the bill at the PIS Conference in Rotoura.

Dalziel expressed surprise with the comments and said it was the first time she had heard the criticisms.

"They haven't presented these issues directly to me which is unfortunate."

Dalziel has had an open door policy over this issue and says that officials, except the Securities Commission are working on the proposals.

She says the only reason the commission can't help is because it still doesn't have any official powers.

The main concern raised by McMillan was that the new proposals were too much in favour of suppliers, therefore independent advisers were at a disadvantage.

He said there was a risk that advisers could go back to working for suppliers, rather than being independent.

Both Hutton and McMillan said that they thought it was more important to take the time to get the bill right, rather than rushing it through Parliament before this year's election.

Both men said there was still a lot of uncertainty about the bill which needed to be clarified.

Dalziel took a different view, arguing that the bill needed to be passed before the election, otherwise there would be insufficient time to get it in place by the end of next year.

She argued the bill set a framework for regulation. Once that was passed officials and the industry could work out the details of the regulation.

She reiterated her view that the previously proposed co-regulatory regime with Approved Professional Bodies wouldn't have worked in this environment and that the latest proposals would work.

Added to that she indicated that the bill would pass. She said she has "absolute commitment" from the National Party over the bill.

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