When comedian Shaun Micallef's latest episode of Mad as Hell did a spoof on the scandal-ridden financial planning industry it was a signal that the shenanigans had well and truly entered in the public psyche.

It comes as the wind-back of financial planning reforms, the so-called Future of Financial Advice amendments are expected to be debated in the Senate this week.

And it also comes just as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission agreed on Monday to intervene in a court case relating to the collapsed Great Southern managed investment scheme. The regulator's involvement based on public interest follows a request from a group of senators, including Bill Heffernan and Sam Dastyari, who last week said they had been inundated with complaints from investors worried about imminent foreclosures and who had lost a fortune when the scheme went belly up.

In other parts of the sector, thousands of Timbercorp victims are getting slapped with writs after the scheme collapsed leaving huge debts that the liquidator is calling in.

Unfortunately most of the problems in the financial services and advice sector don't seem to have sunk in to the federal government's psyche. Rather than trying to clean up the problem, it has opted for minimal change.