As flagged by Crikey earlier this week, the government has revealed today it is moving ahead with its plans to repeal the Future of Financial Advice reforms, albeit with a fig leaf of some additional wording addressing the concerns expressed even by financial planners about the restoration of conflicted remuneration.

That means we won’t see financial planners criticising the government’s package — but the additions will do nothing to address the concerns of seniors’ groups, consumers and key sections of the superannuation industry that repealing FOFA will return us to the bad old days of financial planning that gave us collapses like Storm and Westpoint. Financial planners will still be able to avoid acting in the best interests of their clients if they can satisfy a tick-a-box legislative requirement. And it will perpetuate the rort by which financial planners exploit the disengagement of their clients to charge fees for advice people don’t ask for and don’t want.

The fact that the Financial Services Council, controlled by the big banks and AMP, and the Australian Bankers’ Association have today lauded the government’s intention to proceed reveals exactly whom the gutting of FOFA is intended to benefit.

Moreover, the government is doing it at the exact moment it has taken the scalpel to the budget of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which by its own admission failed to effectively regulate the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planners and then failed to properly vet the compensation payments the bank was forced to pay as a result of its planners’ malfeasance.

The result will be more rip-offs, more gouging, more lost savings, more ruined retirements. And it will entirely be the fault of this government.