Before the legislation to enact the government's announced advice reforms has even been written, it appears they are being watered down. News reports are bubbling around that minister Chris Bowen is signaling very loudly that he is open to softening his stance that clients must opt-in annually for planners to be able to charge them ongoing fees.
Extending the annual window to three years is a significant concession and it being on the table after just a few weeks of informal discussion, discussions that weren't even heavy negotiations about the legislation itself, shows how fluid these reforms proposals still are.
The government and Treasury will, of course, say that it's only an implementation timetable issue, but given the minister's enthusiasm on the Anzac Day holiday Monday when he announced his reforms to an excited media and willing financial services sector, we all know this isn't quite the case.
It shows, yet again, that proposed laws and regulations until they are locked down in legislation that has gone through both house of Parliament are just that - proposals.
Media statements, press releases and speeches do nothing more than tell us what the government is thinking. But they are not new laws - and you can never be charged with an offence against a media statement.
So why does the advice industry so predictably drop everything, rollover and panic at the first sight of one of these media announcements? I've been watching this occur for almost two decades and I still have absolutely no idea.
Society is changing and the advice industry is not immune from any of these shifts but there is a big difference between being responsive to change and working cooperatively with government and getting so far ahead of the pack that you risk falling into the ravine.
The mining industry is an extreme and perhaps hysterical example, but it does illustrate that governments proposing new laws is often just the starting point in how they will be implemented, if indeed they survive the media spotlight and Parliamentary scrutiny.
This public discussion, that the Prime Minister wonderfully calls "argy bargy", is all part of how modern developed world parliamentary democracies work through tough issues and it is nothing to be feared. In fact, it is wonderfully healthy that we can have these robust arguments and still go to the footie with each other next weekend.
The questions now, however, are what other concessions are on the table. And are we, and our associations, shrewd enough to seize them? But maybe we don't want to because we know we need to reform to win back public credibility, and we know we need the government reforms to make us do it.
If that's the case, then this is not about regulation but what we want to do to be recognised as professionals. However, this means we control the implementation, the timelines and the rules of the game. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just playing for the media, for market share and is only after a headline.
