Consumer groups warn the changes, if implemented, would result in the provision of “conflicted advice” from financial service firms and sow the seeds for the next royal commission.

You can see where Levy is coming from. Bereft of access to affordable licensed advice, the closest interactions most Aussies have about their money are usually directly with their lenders or super funds. It’s not uncommon for members to ring up and ask for advice only to be turned away.

Perhaps, in our pursuit of quality advice, we have made “perfect” the enemy of the “good”. Perhaps extending “good” advice to more people would yield benefits to offset any small resulting harm from either a less stringent test of advice or the inherent conflict in having financial services firms providing advice about their own products. Perhaps.

What the Levy review seems to miss, in my view, is any vision of where Australians could potentially access advice outside of qualified advisers or product issuers.

What about the government?

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In her report, Levy summarily dismisses the idea of a government-run scheme – favoured by consumer groups – which operates in the United Kingdom and provides limited sessions of free advice, in phone and in person, to consumers. The UK service is funded by a small levy of about a dollar a year on all retirement accounts.

Australia already has a trusted MoneySmart website offering online tools and calculators, alongside a government-funded National Debt Helpline (1800 007 007), which provides free financial counselling to indebted consumers. I’d combine the two and beef them up.

Rather than having Australia’s 140 super funds designing the advice wheel 140 times over – and deducting the cost from member accounts – the advocacy group Super Consumers Australia suggests a much cheaper option would be to contribute a small amount – say, a dollar a year – from every super account to establish a government-run service to give personalised advice to Australians, similar to the UK.

In addition to a new telephone or in-person advice service, MoneySmart should be beefed up with more financial education resources and bring together existing government tools already designed to help empower consumers to compare the performance and pricing of products like superannuation, health insurance and electricity bills.

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Rather than putting financial advice back in the hands of financial product issuers – which seems a lot like putting the foxes in charge of the hen house – it’s time for the government to step up and fulfil its obligations.

Governments have made our financial lives inordinately more complex in recent decades, forcing us to save money via superannuation, to which increasingly complex tax rules apply. Having done so, responsibility must surely lie with governments to make sure consumers are equipped with a service to help them navigate the maze of complexity they have created.

I’ll even put my hand up to run it, if you like.

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