The big dream in Australian financial services is always how to leverage its size, expertise and proximity to Asia to become a major and successful export industry. So far that dream has proven largely elusive.
The question now is whether and when the industry can finally turn this potential into even a modest version of reality. Financial services in Australia clearly doesn't possess the same natural advantages as Australia has in mining or agriculture. But industry leaders keep repeating the statistics. Australia has the third largest pool in the world of funds under management - at $2.5 trillion. That also makes it the largest pool in Asia, which also happens to be home to a middle class that will number more than $3 billion by 2030. An industry that already employs 400,000 people and contributes $130 billion to the Australian economy each year clearly has the potential to grow far more internationally.
Less than 5 per cent of that $2.5 trillion worth of funds under Australian management for example belongs to offshore investors, compared to figures of 80 per cent in Singapore and 40 per cent in the UK. 
Some of this is certainly due to the complacency of Australian financial services businesses, grown comfortable on steady domestic growth fuelled by compulsory superannuation. Apprehension about the risks of overseas expansion, often from direct and unhappy experience, has consolidated that reluctance.
Some of it is also due to the difficulties in negotiating the many restrictions on access to markets, especially in Asia. These types of barriers are gradually being whittled away via such developments as the Asia Region Funds Passport which has been strongly pushed by Australia and is due to start next year. This passport is attempting to streamline access across countries by waiving or reducing regulations and impediments in other retail markets. It's like a free trade agreement for fund managers, providing common rules and mutual recognition of standards. But some of of the problem is undoubtedly due to the extraordinary and inexcusable delay in making sure Australian government policy is no longer standing in the way of such trade. It is naturally a subject of considerable interest at the Financial Services Council Conference this week, if only because it has been talked about at so many previous conferences and participants realise the need for change is more urgent than ever.
The most detailed policy prescription to alter the lack of progress was outlined in the Johnson review way back in 2009, for example.
Many of these provisions sounded arcane and complicated - including to politicians. They tended to get pushed out by other government priorities (or chaos in the case of the former Labor Government). But their significance to the industry and its potential to grow internationally is enormous. The risk under the Abbott Government is that they will fall victim to yet more convoluted process rather than to more chaos. That's despite the attempted activism of a relatively new Financial Services Minister Josh Frydenberg. Under his leadership, one of the key Johnson recommendations - finalising the investor management regime - was belatedly passed this   June. This provision effectively allows Australian fund managers to appeal to foreign investors by exempting them from paying Australian rates of tax simply because such funds are channelled via Australia.
Yet other necessary changes recommended by Johnson to encourage more foreign investors to use Australian managers are still in limbo. One important reform would allow a broader range of collective investment vehicles. This is rather than relying on the traditional unit trusts which are unique to Australia and regarded with scepticism by many foreign investors.
There's also what Andrew Bragg, of the Financial Services Council, calls a "dog's breakfast" of different withholding tax rates. These tax rates are applied to returns for foreign investors on investments made by Australian managers. They can be as high as 30 per cent depending on the home of the investor and type of investment - an obvious disincentive and fitting the logic that 30 per cent of nothing is worth less to government than 10 per cent of something.
Yet it seems likely such specific changes will be caught up in the drawn-out tax white paper process. This would mean deferring any action beyond the election.
That is even though the greatest impact of negotiating free trade agreements with China or an Asia Passport can only be as powerful as the domestic reforms that underpin them. Given the rapidity of change in the global economy and in financial services generally, this domestic policy timetable seems badly out of whack with the ability to take advantage of the real opportunities that exist as well as winning the race to grab them.
Geoff Lloyd, chief executive of Perpetual, still sounds optimistic about the ability of the industry to manage this. He is enthusiastic about the ability to use platforms like the FTA and the Asia Passport and the investment management regime to do so.
"It's up to us to lose those opportunities,' he says. "It's no longer a matter of how can we - but why can't we? It won't happen overnight but it's definitely worth it."
He too cites Australia's competitive advantages include its proximity to Asia, its strong legal system and its ability to leverage its financial sophistication and size to a growing market in need of such services. But he concedes this requires business leadership to make it happen. Generational change may be necessary, he says, to avoid being too scarred by previous failures to be willing to take the necessary risks. Let's hope he's still not repeating that line at the next few conferences.
Jennifer Hewett is a guest of the Financial Services Council.