An outcome - like avoiding accidents - tends to arise from a number of activities or strategies working in concert. Good legislation is usually one of them, but only one. When we come to rely too heavily on only one strategy, we can get poor results.
While I am, broadly, supportive of the idea of the Royal Commission into misconduct in the financial services sector in Australia, I don't think this article is the best example of why that inquiry is needed. I offer it to you, instead, as an example of the types of problem that will remain after the inquiry, and after any law change. Max Newnham rightly points out the poor advice given to this client. But the advice was the product of either carelessness or greed, which will remain whether or not the adviser is employed in a vertically integrated advice business. I happen to prefer the idea that consumers have choice. But even if they do, it would not prevent bad advice borne of either incompetence or greed - which can happily co-exist with a long approved provider list. Specifically, the duplication of the income protection cover in the example in the article would be no less possible, and probably no less likely, should the client have been talking to an independent adviser.
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