Page 3220 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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existing power of attorney. When an incapacitated person, who is subject to orders of the tribunal, needs to make an enduring power of attorney, this Bill provides amendments which stipulate that the person is not competent to give such a power unless the tribunal has approved the provisions in the enduring power of attorney.
The Bill will also amend the Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1978 to enable a medical practitioner to rely upon the validity of an order made by the tribunal consenting to the removal of non-regenerative tissue from an incapacitated adult. Such consent will not be exercised lightly by the tribunal. The Guardianship and Management of Property Bill 1991, which establishes the tribunal, provides safeguards on the exercise of that power by the tribunal. I present the explanatory memorandum for the Bill.
Debate (on motion by Mr Collaery) adjourned.
COMMUNITY ADVOCATE BILL 1991
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (10.49): Mr Speaker, I present the Community Advocate Bill 1991. I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
The Community Advocate Bill 1991 forms part of the quartet of Bills which include legislation to establish the guardianship and management of property tribunal. The concept of a community advocate grew out of the need for a public advocate to represent the interests of incapacitated persons before that tribunal.
In its guardianship and management of property report of 1989, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended the establishment in the ACT of a tribunal and public advocate for guardianship related matters. Those recommendations drew upon the experience of the Victorian Guardianship and Administration Board and Victorian Public Advocate, as well as other jurisdictions. The Victorian model, with its specialist tribunal and advocacy service, is highly regarded; but the ACT, with one-twelfth the population of Victoria, is not well placed to provide a similar specialist freestanding tribunal and single purpose advocacy service.
The matter was examined and my departmental officers developed the concept of a multipurpose advocacy service called the community advocate. A discussion paper was issued together with the budget papers in 1990 by the former Attorney-General, Mr Collaery. A comprehensive analysis of the concept of a community advocate was carried out by the ACT Mental Health Legislation Review Committee in its report Balancing Rights. That committee comprised
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