Hutchison Paul: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:11972] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to speak on this Protection of Personal and Property Rights Amendment Bill. As the Minister for Senior Citizens has described it is a very important bill to protect particularly those who are elderly or who may be suffering from a disability or mental incapacity. 
There are several somewhat curious aspects about the genesis and evolution of this bill but I too personally want to say how well the parties worked together. I was struck of course by the humility of the chairman who described his chairmanship of the Social Services Committee as excellent. Nevertheless we did work very well together and I think Russell Fairbrother did display a degree of excellence on this occasion. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: That’s hard to believe! 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It is hard to believe my colleague says. Never mind. 
The important thing I was going to say is that this Act has not been reviewed since 1988. The Law Commission reported in 2001 and its findings have not been taken up by the Government for 6 years. All New Zealanders should regard that as a very serious omission because this is a sensible bill that is being supported by the Opposition. The delay by Labour has meant that a large number of disabled and mentally incapacitated people have not had the benefits of its upgrade. I believe that that is very serious. Once again it is an indictment on this Labour Government. 
I agree that some of the submissions were excellent. One in particular came from members of the New Zealand Institute of Legal Executives who pointed out that they have been very involved in helping with the paperwork regarding signing enduring powers of attorney and that they would be eminently capable of doing so themselves. All parties saw that this was appropriate and indeed members of that group now have that power. I think they pointed out that on average they do this two to three times a week—up to 200 times a year—and that they are probably the most competent of anyone to carry it out. So this was a very practical and useful thing. 
As far as I am aware one aspect that has not come up in the debate is a submission received from members of the family law section of the New Zealand Law Society. I am concerned about it for a variety of reasons. The first is that the submissioners state that although the proposals from the Government made in the paper in some respects go beyond what is recommended by the Law Commission they are disappointed the proposals do not go further. They state that the proposals would significantly advance the rights and interests of donors in respect of the establishment and activation of enduring powers of attorney but that significant risks would still be attached to the operation of enduring powers of attorney by unscrupulous attorneys. They say—and this is the Law Society itself—that it has been suggested that even in some jurisdictions with a registration system between 10 and 15 percent of enduring powers of attorney are operated improperly or fraudulently. What I was concerned about was that they went on to say that although the section was not aware of any research-based statistics in New Zealand anecdotal evidence suggested that abuse or fraud by court-appointed managers and welfare guardians would be on a very limited scale and certainly substantially less than the abuse by attorneys under enduring powers of attorney. In my view the important point is that according to the Law Society and as I understand it some of the academics there is no good academic research of an evidenced-based nature regarding this bill. 
I think that if indeed there is to be a review in 5 years’ time it would be incumbent on the Minister to ensure that there is in train careful monitoring of the new amendments and some evidence-based research as to what is actually going on. I think my colleague Judith Collins pointed out that these amendments are certainly not going to be the last changes to the Act. It will need continual progression as things change over time. I was very glad to see that the Minister put in a Supplementary Order Paper to make sure that if an individual was no longer mentally incapable then there were opportunities to suspend the attorney’s authority to act under the appropriate power. Obviously we support that amendment. 
At the end of the day the paramount issue is that the interests of the donor are kept right at the forefront and the attorney has a duty to encourage the donor to make decisions as he or she is able. National supports this bill in its third reading and is very glad to do so.