The Australian financial services sector will miss Senator Helen Coonan following her elevation from the outer-Cabinet position of Assistant Treasurer to the loftier, inner-Cabinet position of Minister for Communications and the Arts.
While Joe Hockey as Financial Services Minister before the last election was arguably the dynamo which drove implementation of the Financial Services Reform Act, Coonan over the past three years has provided the drive necessary to ensure implementation of the Government’s superannuation policy.
The implementation of the Financial Services Reform Act was the larger and more difficult of the two jobs, but it is Coonan who has now been elevated to the inner ministry while Hockey continues to languish in the outer ministry as Minister for Small Business and Tourism.
In analysing Coonan’s performance in the role of Assistant Treasurer it is hard to give her other than a variable report card. While it is true that the Government can now celebrate the implementation of the bulk of its superannuation policy platform, the process proved far from smooth and the minister was not blameless in this.
There were moments at the end of last year when Coonan seemed to confuse even members of her own party, when she found herself at odds with the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation on the key question of portability.
Coonan moved to gazette the portability regulations before the Senate Select Committee enquiring into the issue had even had time report its findings. It was a move she lived to regret when, ultimately, the regulations were disallowed and had to be revised.
Coonan is a lawyer and brought a lawyer’s analysis to the financial services portfolio, something that proved vital when discussing regulatory issues with the major players in the industry.
Thus, there will be many people within the financial services sector who will be wondering what Coonan’s successor, Mal Brough will bring to the portfolio.
Brough does not have a background in either financial services or the law and, indeed, his Parliamentary biography suggests he has little experience on the key committees dealing with economics, administration or financial services.
If the Prime Minister had not suggested there would likely be further Cabinet changes after the election, there would be a temptation to think the Government believes most of the hard work has now been done.
