Page 3662 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 21 November 2006
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There are many other points of complexity. For example, while family members, identified carers and the public advocate have access to the principal where an enduring power of attorney is in place, there is no such access for community-based advocacy services who have staff that could very often be of the most help in difficult situations. I understand that, if such a service holds legitimate concerns and the attorney seeks to bar access to the principal, the service could approach the public advocate and seek an access order. Again, that information needs to be made clear to all parties at the front end when the powers are established.
Similarly, one of the fairly simple protections in this bill is that someone being given power of attorney needs to be nominated and witnessed by three people. There are some specifications as to who they might be. While the legislation is silent on the issue, commonsense dictates that the form will need to require not just a signature but also the name and address, at the very least, of those people.
I would like to put on the record a plea that the government work closely with the relevant government and community agencies in the development of the associated forms and to consider making them disallowable instruments, in recognition of their centrality to the effectiveness of this legislation.
I note there have been two amendments circulated while I have been standing here making this speech. Again, while I appreciate that they may improve the quality of this legislation, it would be very helpful to have them a little bit before we vote on it in the Assembly and not at the very time we are considering these complex matters. Nonetheless, I will be supporting this legislation with all the caveats I have just presented.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.57): These two bills—the Powers of Attorney Bill and the one that accompanies it, the Medical Treatment (Health Directions) Bill—are significant pieces of legislation. I share some of the concerns expressed by Dr Foskey about, first of all, the speed they took to get into the Assembly, which was fairly snail-like, and, once they were in the Assembly, the fact that they have been dealt with rather quickly. Sometimes I and my office would have preferred to have more time. It is not an area which is in our usual bailiwick. Because of the huge implications it has for all of my constituents, it is one that we have taken a particular interest in.
I am pleased that Mr Stefaniak proposes to move on behalf of the opposition a couple of amendments that draw connections between these pieces of legislation and some of the prohibitions that rest in the self-government act. My colleagues and I are concerned about the slight possibility that some of the powers that are instituted in the Powers of Attorney Bill and in the health directions provisions—
MR SPEAKER: You should confine your remarks to the Powers of Attorney Bill.
MRS DUNNE: I will probably be saying the same things on the health directions bill. My colleagues and I are concerned that these create the possibility, possibly inadvertently, that decisions may be made that would impinge upon the prohibition against euthanasia in the self-government act. Mr Stefaniak has drafted and circulated an amendment to highlight the prohibitions under which we stand in the ACT in relation to this, and to reinforce it in this very important piece of legislation.
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