Wednesday 24th of September 2008

Many of you will be surprised (or have some other emotion) that the Financial Advisers Bill has been passed before the election. Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel made it clear that was her intention and many doubted her. I didn’t. I reckon there will be plenty of other political surprises in the next month and a half – the biggest one of course will be a Labour victory. I haven’t written them off and, yes I’m a bit of a lone wolf in this industry of ours, suggesting that Helen Clark could well be leading the next government. One of the contrary things is that the finance industry tends to be reasonably conservative (no social concscience I hear in the background!) Quite a few people are highly active within National, others were unlikely enough to have their names included in Nicky Hagar’s book The Hollow Men. But the reality the Clark-led governments have been great for us. Why would you get rid of them? I have no idea what National stands for or what it would do to help savings (other than its panacea for everything – tax cuts) and absolutely not a clue what it thinks of KiwiSaver. Labour on the other hand has a long list of achievements starting with the NZ Super Fund, moving through to providing certainty around the state pension (for the record it is NZ Super NOT National Super), KiwiSaver, tax changes including the PIE regime (which is massive for us) and now more regulation around the advisory sector. You could argue few industries have had more support and encouragement over the past nine year than savings. I would have thought with these sorts of achievements the savings industry should be cheering on Labour. It’s hard to get excited about what National has to offer, as we just don’t know. There is talk that it would cut back the employer contribution for KiwiSaver. That wouldn’t win it too many friends and from my perspective as an employer I’m happy helping my team. Feel free to comment!