Page 3661 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 21 November 2006
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While I am pleased with the role the ACT Greens continue to play in working consultatively with this sector, I cannot understand why the government does not, as a matter of course, advise affected agencies when legislation they have contributed to is tabled. An email with a link to the legislation register sent to all interested parties would do that job for them.
Unless informed stakeholders get to see and comment on a draft of the final document, the value of their input is seriously compromised. Given that there is a government amendment here today and a number of issues that we recognise in this bill itself, it would have made a lot of sense to have had a draft tabled before we had the final legislation.
I appreciate that the work of ACT public servants is becoming more pressured. I want to thank very much the two officers who came and talked with my staff yesterday. They could not have been more helpful. I appreciate that the government makes that service available to me as a crossbencher and, no doubt, to the opposition. Again, we need that draft and we need that time.
One of the key issues raised by the Council on the Ageing—COTA—right from the early days is ease of operation. This bill, in seeking to deal comprehensively with the many issues surrounding powers of attorney, is in itself complex.
The forms and public information will be the interface for most people with these laws. It is essential that they are in a form that makes this legislation clear and accessible to lay people. I have been advised that COTA had hoped such materials would have been provided with this bill, but that has not happened.
I am aware that officers of the department believe they have a good understanding of what the forms and explanatory material need to contain. I urge the minister and the department to make a commitment to develop the education, the program and the relevant forms in real consultation with the relevant stakeholder groups.
In discussion with staff at ADACAS—the peak advocacy body for aged people, those with a disability and mental illness—a number of specific concerns were raised which, as they have not been addressed in legislation, need to be considered at the next stage. They include the specific need for people seeking to issue powers of attorney to understand that, while an enduring power of attorney is answerable to the Public Trustee, a general power of attorney is not. Depending on your situation, you may well want to give someone a general power of attorney while you have the capacity, which would then translate into an enduring power of attorney when and if that capacity was lost.
There is nothing in the legislation which makes it clear that someone you give a general power to act on your behalf dealing with bank accounts and so on has to consult with you and provide transparent accounts of what they have been doing. While there is a common law fiduciary duty to properly account to a principal, I think the content of this duty should have been fleshed out in this legislation. Given that it has not at this stage, I can only say that it ought to be made clear in public information and on the relevant forms.
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