Page 1739 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 17 October 1989
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the relatives in good faith attempt to get instructions, is very difficult, very taxing, and those situations are often very tragic indeed.
So, happily, the enduring Powers of Attorney (Amendment) Bill comes before the house. It is likely, as I said, Mr Speaker, to my knowledge, to receive the support of this Assembly. The recommendations of the Law Reform Commission are also recommendations against the social impact of the Bill. One impact, of course, very often is that the funds available for the care of persons who are comatose are often locked away and are difficult to access. Persons in that category, particularly aged migrants who do not have readily accessible family support, are sometimes put upon the public charge, and they find themselves in special homes and the like at charge.
This Bill may encourage more people who, in their senior years and approaching the frail stage of life, will see the sense in conserving their assets and ensuring that they make provision for their own comfort in the event that they become incapacitated. This provides a situation in which aged people may not altogether divest themselves of assets, often to their children who may leave the area or not respond to the calls of duty in respect of parents - and there are sadly instances of that these days - or lose the assets themselves.
Hopefully this Bill will receive adequate publicity and adequate recognition, particularly in terms of the Public Trustee's social role in this regard, and will ensure that to some extent, as the Law Reform Commission put it somewhat delicately, the privatisation of care for the aged is encouraged - that is, that they make provision for themselves and do not altogether divest themselves and rely on the state.
Mr Speaker, the legislation is likely to be amended in the detail stage, and I understand the Chief Minister has already foreseen that requirement. I indicate that largely the emphasis for the Bill is to provide the very excellent, honest and dedicated support by the Public Trustee, as referee, as it were - certainly as trustee and custodian - for these situations. All of us in practice have felt somewhat uneasy occasionally over the years with the manner in which a donee of a power has occasionally used a power for a frail aged person, often a relative. This received almost unanimous support throughout the legal and other community groups when the Law Reform Commission commenced its excellent consultative phase.
I expect that you will see an easing of the qualms that many of us have with respect to the old powers of attorney which linger in our legal safes at times or which are held at banks and which are used and called up, in the absence of the donee, many years after they are made. Some of us wonder exactly what the current capacity or understanding of the donee is.
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