Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance) (14:47): I also congratulate Senator Bullock on his first question in this chamber. It is a real privilege that his first question is, indeed, addressed to me. The Western Australians in this chamber are having a very active question time today. Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! Senator CORMANN: What I would say in response to Senator Bullock's question is that this government absolutely supports the consumer protections that matter to consumers. What we do not support is the additional unnecessary red tape, which pushes up the cost of advice for consumers and which was imposed on consumers and on small-business financial advisers at the behest of union-dominated industry funds. In all of the submissions to the Ripoll inquiry, which looked at Australian financial products and services, there was only one submission that recommended, for example, this requirement that clients of financial advisers should keep re-signing contracts to their advisers on a regular basis. And guess who that was? Guess who made that recommendation out of more than 400 submissions? It was Industry Super Australia. And guess what? After Industry Super Australia was successful in convincing Minister Shorten to impose that additional bit of red tape, guess what else they negotiated? Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Senator Wong! Senator Cameron! Order on my left. Senator CORMANN: They negotiated a carve-out for themselves from the exact same requirement. Small business financial advisers have to comply with a bit of red tape that was imposed on small business financial advisers at the behest of industry super, and industry super gets themselves a carve-out from that exact same requirement so that they do not have to comply with it. They are providing advice, general and personal advice; they are charging for that advice without disclosing how much they are charging; they are not allowing people to opt out of that advice and they are not required to impose opt-in. What we are saying is cut the red tape that is unnecessary, keep the consumer protections that matter, keep the requirement to act in the best interests of the client, keep the ban on conflicted remuneration— (Time expired)