Page 3816 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 October 2005
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Title read by Clerk.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra) (10.32): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
It is with pleasure that I rise to speak today to introduce the Guardianship and Management of Property Amendment Bill 2005. It deals with the estates of missing persons and will enable families and other persons such as business colleagues to administer the estates of missing persons in their absence.
At present in Australia, many families suffer hardship and great emotional stress as the result of their inability to protect the assets of loved ones or provide for their dependants. Some 30,000 people go missing in Australia every year and, while most of them are found, a small number, about 150, are never found. At any one time in our country, some 3,000 people are missing and have been missing for more than a few months.
In the ACT, missing persons have little status in law and their families at present are unable to administer their estates. Only the Public Trustee can. It means that families cannot protect the property of missing family members by doing simple things like making mortgage repayments, negotiating with a lender or accessing resources to pay for dependants and to service debts.
New South Wales recently passed the Protected Estates Amendment (Missing Persons) Act 2004 to deal with the often-complex problems created when a person disappears. A number of cases were quoted in relation to the need for such provision in the lead-up to the New South Wales legislation.
In one case, a non-English speaking wife and small children were left without access to money after the disappearance of the father and husband. The lady there had no access to her husband’s superannuation or work entitlements. Apart from the normal trauma that is caused when a loved one goes missing, that caused severe problems for the family.
In another case, used as a rationale for changing the law, a man in the middle of renovating his home went missing. The bank resumed his house, as that man’s parents were not able to make mortgage payments or negotiate with the bank. Perhaps some of the problems here are also due to the fact that the privacy laws are so strict. That is another thing that probably needs looking at.
Another example perhaps in the ACT could be Mr and Mrs X and their daughter. Let us call her Y. Y owns a house in Kambah and has a mortgage with the bank. She lives alone there; she does not have a partner; but she does have parents. Y goes missing and, despite all the family’s attempts to find her, has vanished without trace. Because of privacy reasons, her family cannot get access to the information as to how they would pay for the mortgage. They would not be able to administer her estate; they would not be able to arrange for a tenant to be put in so that the mortgage could be paid by way of that. So there is a potential there for the bank to resume the house.
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