Another day another government inquiry and yet another submission to add to the noise and confusion already in play.
Will we never learn that clever research papers espoused by well meaning but isolated financial services firms do not make much difference in policy discussions. It is the job of the Government to govern and the job of the bureaucracy to implement and administer their directions. It is not ours.
Just look at what is happening with the Rudd Government’s Holy Trinity of reviews in the Ripoll Review, the Henry Tax Review and ? in what is expected to be the least effective – the Cooper Review. Two years of research and lobbying and all we have to show for this grand effort is 2100 separate submissions and their estimated 100 million words.
Surely we don’t expect Governments to make sense of all that, no matter how professional and expert they are?
A study of the Cooper Review submissions received so far conducted by Financial Standard is a text book case study in what is going wrong: 224 submissions, less than half of which are by our industry and professional associations.
That’s right, the Inquiry is receiving so many submissions that our associations are being drowned out by their own members and their 96 submissions from adviser groups, fund managers, super funds and service providers all with their barrows to push.
Add in the 77 from private individuals, many of whom are probably industry insiders anyway, and the 49 prepared by our elected associations to carry our big industry-wide concerns are probably struggling for oxygen.
Public inquiries are of course part of the democratic process and no one should ever be denied their right to make a submission. But for an industry already battling to make its case and find a coherent voice from among its 32 associations to then have to publicly battle against each of their member firms and individuals working at these firms is hardly an exercise in efficiency and productivity.
Financial services and wealth management in particular is a nationally important industry directly employing ten of thousands of Australians and indirectly assisting and financing the employment and well being of millions of others.
The best way for us to assist and influence policymakers is therefore to do what we do best – help Australians invest their money, protect their assets, harvest their returns, manage their finances and efficiently grow their and the nation’s wealth.
Make this our exclusive focus and we won’t need to waste millions of precious working hours writing submissions to government inquiries that go nowhere. Even worse, at the standard freelance journalist rate of 55 cents per word this is $60 million we should be investing elsewhere.
We should of course participate in the review process but through our associations which we resource up to arm them for this high-stakes fight. If however we are not comfortable they are up to it then it’s time to get a new set of associations.
