The FSRB didn’t make it through Parliament last week. As we reported last week, the timeline for the legislation is getting uncomfortably tight. It will have to be introduced in the one eight-day session remaining before the May Budget sessions. Financial Services & Regulation Minister Joe Hockey will therefore have to move quickly to live up to last month’s declaration that things will be up and running by July 1.

In the meantime, ASIC is understood to be sticking to the FSRB schedule it announced last month, so expect over the next couple of weeks a deluge of documents. They’ll include:

• the policy framework, which will illustrate how the entire legislative package will fit together;
• the licensing policy proposal paper, which sets out the necessary procedures for advising and selling financial products;
• organisational capacities,
• product disclosure statements;
• discretionary powers and transition; and
• a guide to the licence structure and the application process.

There’s a swag more planned for next month, too. As we noted last week, delays in the legislation introduction aren’t welcome to lobbyists because vital details that will need discussion may be caught in the rush to get the thing through the parliamentary process. That sounds disturbingly like the way the GST was introduced.