Finally, the government has made its move on financial advice. And there’s plenty for us everyday people to be happy about.

But there’s also a big hole in the middle that we must discuss because, ultimately, I want Australians to be able to get the help they need to make good retirement decisions.

Yet finding help without strings attached can be really difficult. It might be tied to the institution that already holds your money. Or it might come from an adviser with a centrally determined preferred or approved product list. Or you might find an adviser willing to give you retirement advice, but only if you also sign up for an ongoing investment management relationship.

And I’m quite sure that consumers want something far simpler: affordable, one-off advice or a two-year package deal for the run-up and transition into retirement, when they have a few big decisions to make.

Because for many people, that’s when the big questions come in thick and fast: should I stay with my super fund? Should I move super funds? What type of retirement product is really right for me (versus the one my fund offers)? When should I start drawing an income stream? How does the age pension fit into my plans? And how much can I really afford to spend?

Sometimes you just need someone independent to help you make some of these big decisions well. The big question is whether these reforms will finally make that kind of advice commercially attractive for advisers to offer consumers, and affordable to buy, or whether the advice industry has already moved towards a business model built around ongoing advice and investment management.

The government is trying to shut the door on fear-based sales funnelling that can drive people to switch their super into dodgy schemes.

Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Dr Daniel Mulino presented the government’s next stage of financial advice reforms at the National Press Club on Wednesday, with two big focuses.

The first takes aim at super spruikers, lead generators and dodgy super switching – practices that have formed part of the chain of misconduct exposed by the devastating Shield and First Guardian collapses. And we should applaud these moves.

The government plans to ban unlicensed real-time communications about super. What that means is that an unlicensed super spruiker or lead generation company won’t be allowed to cold-call you, jump on a live online chat or otherwise engage you in real time to convince you to move your super.

These are the high-pressure interactions that happen where someone typically tells you your super is underperforming, you’re missing out or your retirement savings are at risk. Then, not long afterwards, they offer to introduce you to an adviser, or you’re told there’s a better place for your money, which ultimately leads to your super switching into high-risk, often poorly understood investments.

In other words, the government is trying to shut the door on fear-based sales funnelling that can drive people to switch their super into dodgy managed investment schemes.

But he’s also putting much more responsibility on the big institutions that run investment platforms. Under the reforms, ASIC will have the power to direct a super trustee, or a platform trustee, to begin compensating members if an investment option fails and there is reasonable suspicion the trustee hasn’t met their obligations.

And if the trustee is found to have breached those obligations, it will have to compensate members for 100 per cent of their capital losses. APRA will also have the power to require trustees offering higher risk investment options to have the capital backing to meet those obligations.

Then, after the door to dodgy players was closed, Mulino moved onto part two – the part of the package we were all waiting for, and the one that will affect most Australians: how we actually get financial advice.

There’s some good news here for almost everyone.

The government is finally going to move on its long awaited Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms. Super funds will be able to reach out to members with “nudges” or prompts that encourage them to seek help.

And it will become easier for funds to provide and charge for simpler types of financial advice. The cumbersome statements of advice that have helped make even quite straightforward advice expensive will also be streamlined.

And, the government will allow a new class of adviser to be offered by APRA-regulated super funds and life insurers. The goal of this is to provide a lower-cost form of advice that is within institutions that are already subject to strong regulatory oversight.

There will be limits on the types of advice these advisers can provide, but they should be able to help consumers with some of the straightforward questions that, rather absurdly, super funds have struggled to answer under the current rules.

And I think that’s a superb thing. We desperately need more affordable help and support in the system.

But there’s an obvious limitation. Your advice is coming from the institution that your money is already with, so while they may be able to help you make better decisions within their fund, they are not there to independently shop the market for you and tell you whether another super fund or retirement product might be better for you.

And that’s a pretty important distinction. If I’m approaching retirement, I don’t just want to know which retirement product in my existing fund might suit me next, I also want someone to tell me whether I should be in that fund at all.

And if I go to an external adviser, I want to know they really are looking across the market for me, rather than being constrained by a centrally determined preferred or approved product list, designed at least in part, to make the advice business more efficient.

These lists can play an important role in due diligence and risk management for advice businesses, and make providing advice more efficient. But efficiency for the advice business doesn’t always translate into a fair breadth of choice a consumer might expect when they are paying for advice.

What I want is someone sitting on my side of the table, looking at my options without a predetermined destination for my money. And increasingly, I don’t know where you go to find that any more.

To be fair, Mulino may have identified this problem too. Buried in Wednesday’s announcement was a commitment to reform the best interests duty to make it easier for advisers in the wider sector to provide what’s called “scaled advice” – essentially, allowing them to focus on the specific problem you’re asking about, rather than take your entire financial life into consideration.

This could be the most important part of the reforms for people approaching retirement, but the detail of the legislation will matter a lot. Because changing the rules doesn’t mean advice businesses will offer it.

And there’s another piece of the puzzle that hasn’t been solved: Centrelink. Because when you’re approaching retirement, you don’t make your super decisions in isolation. You need to understand how your super and the age pension will combine to deliver you a retirement income.

Mulino was asked on Wednesday whether Centrelink and super funds should be able to share information so that funds could provide more comprehensive retirement guidance. He acknowledged there was a real opportunity here, saying that funds could provide better guidance if they had a basic understanding of someone’s broader financial position.

And that rather proves my point – retirement advice is a lot more than super advice alone. Your super, the age pension, your other assets and your home all come together at retirement, and difficult decisions need to be made to optimise your situation. We need to make these easier to navigate.

So, while I applaud these reforms for getting the ball rolling, I think there’s a hole right in the middle. We’re making it easier to get help from the super funds that already hold our money today. And we’re making it safer to get advice by shutting down some of the very worst practices.

But the real test will be whether these reforms create a market for impartial, affordable advice that consumers can buy without having to buy an investment product or sign up to an ongoing management relationship.

Because at retirement, many people aren’t looking for someone to manage their money for 20 years – they just want to pay a fair and transparent fee for someone to help them make the next few decisions well.

Bec Wilson is author of the bestseller How to Have an Epic Retirement and the newly released Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife. She writes a weekly newsletter at epicretirement.net and hosts the Prime Time podcast.

• Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.