Page 3632 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 28 October 2014
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The second amendment gives a defined “interested party” access, as a matter of process and at their cost, to a copy of a deceased person’s will. This saves everyone the trouble of going through an application process in the Supreme Court.
Two amendments are also made to the Agents Act 2003. The first makes it an offence if certain salespeople are, or pretend to be, employed by an agent but are not registered, except if they are licensed. Previously the provision only applied to unregistered salespeople who pretend to be so employed. I note that this is a strict liability offence.
The second removes a sliver of red tape that requires an agent to make a statutory declaration in relation to trust money. The licence renewal process covers the requirement, as does the requirement to report new trust accounts within two days of them being opened.
The Family Provision Act 1969 is amended to reduce the time from 12 months to six months after administration being granted in which a family provision claim may be made against a deceased estate.
The bill proposes two amendments to the Human Rights Commission Act 2005. The first would allow a commissioner, in defined circumstances, to release a report to a third party even if the party is not subject to a recommendation. In the main, this would apply in circumstances where the commissioner finds the third party has not behaved in a way that it ought, or the issue involves a matter of public policy, or that the third party has a particular interest in the matters being reported, or that the commissioner thinks it is in the public interest to give the report to the third party. This would make the work of the commission more open and, more importantly, effective in changing the way things are done in and for our community.
The second amendment would require that notices about the rights of consumers of services to complain to the commission must be displayed prominently by service providers. This is to overcome a systemic problem that notices are available but not made prominent by some service providers.
An amendment to the Powers of Attorney Act 2006 would clarify that a principal may not appoint a person under 18 as an attorney. A provision is already in place to this effect, but this amendment mainly clarifies the situation in which the attorney might be the principal’s child.
Finally, the Public Trustee Act 1985 is amended to clarify that the Public Trustee can, in the exercise of its powers, require an entity, but not an individual, to provide relevant information or documents.
You will recall, Madam Speaker, that the new Information Privacy Act 2014, which the opposition supported, commenced on 1 September 2014. Following that commencement, this bill also makes technical, minor and non-controversial consequential amendments to 24 other acts and regulations. Those amendments mainly involve changed terminology, but also clarify that some agencies, such as
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