Shanks Katrina: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Shanks Katrina: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:11981] 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to rise tonight to support the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Amendment Bill. The bill amends Part 9 of the principal Act. This was really the first time the Act had been looked at in 19 years so it was important that we had a good look at it. 
I thank the officials who helped us and guided us through the bill as well as the members of the Social Services Committee which was chaired by Russell Fairbrother and deputy chaired by Judith Collins. We worked well on this bill. We worked hard to provide a bill that would protect the most vulnerable in our society because that is what this bill is actually about. It is about enduring powers of attorney. Those who need those powers to be instated are the most vulnerable in our society—those who are mentally incapable and those who are elderly. 
It was very important that we got this bill right and we spent time on getting it right. It has taken 19 years for the bill to get here. It is looking good and the Supplementary Order Papers have added a lot of value to the bill as well. 
 In fact this bill came about because of a review that was carried out by the Law Commission in 2001. The commission published a report entitled  
Misuse of Enduring Powers of Attorney 
. That report is what started this bill and its amendments so I congratulate the Law Commission on the report which started the ball rolling. 
The sad thing about it is that it took 19 years for the bill to get to this House and it has taken 6 years since the Law Commission produced its report in 2001. That seems to be a common theme coming into this House. It has taken some time to get legislation into the House after a review has highlighted that there is a need for change. Two other bills that I spoke on recently have had the same thing—they have been very delayed in getting here. One was the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill and the other was the Broadcasting Amendment Bill. Both of those bills had time delays in getting to Parliament. They have been through Parliament now and that is the important thing. 
We should consider that issue. Why is there such a time delay to get these reviews’ recommendations into bills? That issue is something that needs to be addressed as does the speed at which the reviews’ recommendations are addressed. 
The purpose of this bill as I have stated is to increase the safeguards against the abuse of elderly and disabled people who are our most vulnerable. Certain changes came into the bill. One of the changes was about legal executives. The New Zealand Institute of Legal Executives put a fantastic submission before the select committee and talked to us about why legal executives should be allowed to witness a donor’s signature on an enduring power of attorney. The institution put a great case to us and the select committee listened and changed the bill accordingly to reflect legal executives now being able to witness a donor’s signature. 
Certain conditions were associated with the change. One of those conditions was that the legal executive should have 12 months’ experience. Another condition was that they be registered and supervised so that they are able to witness a donor’s signature. That requirement was to protect the legal executives and ensure that they are qualified to witness. National totally endorses that requirement. 
We also had submissions from law centres which were very concerned about the costs of the changes to the enduring powers of attorney. We took those concerns into consideration as well. The law centres said that with these new amendments fewer people would get enduring powers of attorney because of the increased cost involved. Those people who are listening tonight and who are concerned about the increasing cost may like to note that the law centres actually do enduring powers of attorney for free. I do not want to inundate the law centres with people wanting enduring powers of attorney but they do them for free and do a wonderful job in our society. 
The other consideration when looking at costs in this bill was whether lawyers in the same firm could witness an enduring power of attorney signature. There was concern that there could be a conflict of interest but the committee considered that two lawyers in the same firm could witness a signature. That was a major amendment to this bill as well. 
The other concern was in relation to medical certificates which was quite a contentious issue. The committee decided that medical certificates were not needed to make decisions that are not considered significant on matters of personal care and welfare. Every time somebody with an enduring power of attorney wants to go to do something minor such as buying groceries and he or she needs money to do it the lawyer will not now have to get a medical certificate to state that the person is incapable of doing that. The lawyer can make the decision and just go out to do it for that person. That was a good step forward. 
Another concern was that the bill did not require that an attorney be satisfied that the donor is mentally incapable when making decisions on significant matters. We distinguished between significant and insignificant matters. If it is a significant matter the attorney will now have to be satisfied that the donor is mentally incapable. It was quite important that we make that distinction in the bill. 
The donor also has to pay for medical examinations that are reasonably required for the purposes of certifying his or her mental incapacity. That means that if there was a significant issue the attorney would have to go to get a medical certificate to state that the person was incapable of making those decisions. Incidents were coming through in submissions that this system was being abused. A bit of “medical certificate shopping” was going on to ensure that the attorney would find a doctor who would say a person was medically incapable. The committee decided that the donor would have to pay for only one medical examination in order to ensure that the abuse was not there any longer. 
Another amendment was made that in situations where a donor is unlikely to gain mental capacity a medical certificate could remain valid indefinitely. That amendment was for those people who have conditions that will deteriorate and who are just not going to get better—and there are many people like that out there. This amendment was to ensure that those people could have a medical certificate that would remain valid until they passed on so they would not have to keep going back to a doctor and getting certificates when they were not getting any better and circumstances were not going to change for them. 
In all National supports the third reading of the bill. We congratulate the officials and members of the select committee on the good work they have done. 
Bill read a third time.