Savings industry looks for more than words

The new Parliament meets for the first time today with a fairly bulging ‘pending’ tray of issues relating to the financial services industry.

The industry issue most likely to rate a mention in the speech from the throne by Governor-General Dame Sylvia Cartwright is the need to boost private savings.

How about something like this: "Measures to improve private savings will also be considered, including reducing compliance costs and providing an alternative tax regime more conducive to encouraging superannuation savings."

The only trouble with that sentence is that it is exactly what her predecessor, Sir Michael Hardie-Boys, said in opening Parliament when Labour took office in December 1999.

While there has been much talk on improving private savings, there has, as

AMP’s head of superannuation strategy Linda McCulloch pointed out recently, been no real change.

Minister of Finance Michael Cullen has succeeded in boosting public sector savings, by way of the pre-funded scheme, but no real headway has been made on the private front.

Elsewhere, there are several matters still before select committees. The most political of these is the inquiry into dodgy offshore investment schemes.

This was largely a pre-election vehicle to embarrass Act MP Rodney Hide, and the new finance and expenditure select committee – which will be known on Thursday – may let it drop.

New commerce minister, Lianne Dalziel, has a clutch of recommendations from the Securities Commission on changes to the disclosure rules for investment advisers.

Officials at the Ministry of Economic Development are currently completing their analysis of those recommendations, to go before Dalziel in the middle of next month.

The commission’s recommendations could be implemented more or less unchanged, but if officials suggest changes the issue will go back to Cabinet, a spokeswoman for Dalziel says.

Securities Commission executive chairman Jane Diplock earlier told Good Returns she was "optimistic" that the Government would implement the commission’s recommendations.

A decision was scheduled for this month but that was before the election intervened.