Page 3664 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 21 November 2006
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Dr Foskey made some assertions about the adequacy of the consultation. I would like to reject her assertions. There has been extensive consultation on these reforms since 2002. In 2004 an issues paper was released. There was further community consultation after that that involved a number of submissions being made by community organisations and also the convening of focus group sessions in that year. So the assertion by Dr Foskey is incorrect.
DR FOSKEY: Mention it in the explanatory documents.
MR CORBELL: I know that you do not like being shown up, Dr Foskey, but you got it wrong. I also advised all media outlets, on tabling the legislation, of its tabling and issued a press release to that effect. It was also made available on the ACT government website, which has an automatic mail arrangement for those people who subscribe to areas of interest to them. I would imagine that most community organisations do subscribe to that. The government has not hidden anything here, nor has the government failed to consult properly, contrary to the assertions by Dr Foskey.
The government has paid close attention to the issues raised by the scrutiny of bills committee. I will be moving an amendment in the detail stage to clarify some matters raised by the scrutiny of bills committee in its scrutiny of this bill. I foreshadow that now. There will also be a supplementary explanatory statement for that.
Mr Speaker, the Powers of Attorney Bill is an outcome of an exercise undertaken by this government to review the substituted decision-making regime of the ACT. The review addressed the relevant recommendations made by the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Health and Community Care in 2001 in its inquiry into elder abuse, in relation to preventing abuse of powers of attorney made by older people.
The bill provides safeguards for making a power of attorney, in particular an enduring power of attorney, by anyone. It also sets out matters that a person making a power of attorney must understand and provides for witnesses to be satisfied that the person has understood the nature and effect of making the power of attorney.
The bill enables a person making an enduring power of attorney, who is known as the principal, to express his or her wishes about what decisions his or her attorney should make in relation to the person’s financial, personal care, and health care matters when the person has lost decision-making capacity.
The person may choose to specify in the document when it should commence. The enduring power of attorney may state that it will start on a particular day, or if a certain event occurs, or from the time it is signed. Where an enduring power of attorney starts to operate before the person making it becomes a person with impaired decision-making capacity, it will not end but will operate during the time of such incapacity.
An important feature of the bill is that it requires an attorney under an enduring power of attorney to comply with, to the maximum extent possible, the general principles set out in the schedule to the bill. These principles enshrine the rights of the principal, such as the right to access to family members and relatives, human worth, participation in community life, quality of life, participation in decision making, maintenance of existing supportive relationships, maintenance of environment and values, confidentiality and
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