Page 1862 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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of that office. The amendments in the Administration and Probate (Amendment) Bill will increase the monetary level at which certain estates can be dealt with in a simplified manner. They are, in effect, to keep pace with inflation.
The Opposition had real concerns with one of the recommendations in the Priorities Review Board report of last year which suggested that the Public Trustee function be done away with entirely and that instead that work be undertaken solely by private trustee firms. We were most concerned should the Government proceed down that course. We are pleased to note, as a result of these Bills, that the Government obviously has abandoned that proposal. Rather than abolishing the Public Trustee's office and putting that work out to private tender, the Government is proposing that the Public Trustee's office recover more of the cost of administering those estates. That is something that we cannot object to on social justice grounds.
The Public Trustee's office performs a useful function as a trustee service for persons of limited means. The persons who at the end of the day benefit from that are the persons who benefit under the wills or other arrangements administered by the Public Trustee, and there is no reason why they ought not pay some of the costs of administration. The alternative would be that they would be paying the full costs of private solicitors to deal with the matter.
The only concern that we would raise would be that, if the level of fees was struck on the basis of the complexity of the estate or the complexity of the work, that could have a degree of social injustice. Small estates may, through the different measures of distribution, give rise to some greater degree of complexity. It appears, however, from the Minister's statements that the indication would be that the fees would be set on more of a percentage basis in relation to the estate being administered. We have no difficulty with that.
As we say, this is a measure which is a better alternative than passing the entire function of trustee over to the private sector. It preserves the important role of the Public Trustee. It is hardly a widely heralded role. It is an area that most people are probably little aware of, but the Public Trustee's office and the officers there do an important job in the community in handling small estates and estates of persons with no great wealth and riches who are reluctant to go to the private sector because they do not really want to pay the up-front fees.
It is well known that at the Public Trustee you will get a will done for nothing but a fee will be charged for the administration of that estate, whereas if you go to a private solicitor the will will cost you an up-front fee. In fact, depending on the size of the estate, of course, in some cases people are better off going to the private profession and being charged for their will because the percentage fee presently charged by the Public Trustee may,
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