Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Australia, Institute of Public Accountants and the SMSF Association welcome the opportunity to provide comments on the draft legislation delivering the first tranche of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes package of reforms.

However, we do hold a number of concerns regarding the wording of the legislation and make the following recommendations:

• Further consideration be given to how greater consistency and clarity can be achieved in the range of personal advice that superannuation funds provide and how this is disclosed to members.
• Further consultation with the sector is undertaken to design a single standard fee consent form, that will be prescribed, as stated in recommendation 8 of the Quality of Advice Review, and
• Sections 962F(4), 962G(5) and 962WA are not included as civil penalty provisions under section 1317E of the Corporations Act 2001.
• Section 941C(5A)(b)(i) should be amended to:
  • ‘the providing entity offers the client the option to receive a copy of the Financial Services Guide and the client declines this offer’
• ‘Advice’ be amended to ‘financial service’ in section 941 (5)(d) to align with the obligation in section 941A of the Corporations Act 2001, that a providing entity must provide a FSG when then provide a retail client a financial service, as in section 766A of the Corporations Act 2001.
• The proposed term ‘relevant product’ is removed from section 963BB and the specific insurance products are listed or, where appropriate, the term financial product is used.