Chauvel Charles: Wills Bill — In Committee 
Chauvel Charles: Wills Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9797] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to take a brief call on Part 1 of the Wills Bill. The purposes of the bill are set out in clause 3 which comprises three paragraphs. Paragraph (a) replaces the Wills Act 1837 of the United Kingdom Parliament with an Act in plain language paragraph (b) changes some aspects of the law set out in that legislation and paragraph (c) provides for other matters relating to wills. It is significant that this is the first piece of legislation in which this Parliament has properly and comprehensively dealt with the law relating to wills and I hope that it will be thought the Justice and Electoral Committee has made a reasonable breast of that job. 
I want to deal with some of the general drafting changes in particular the attempts by the select committee to introduce plain language into the legislation. First we thought that “natural person” was a cumbersome and unnecessary term—unnecessary because clause 8(1) had already defined a “will” as a document made by a natural person. So references to “natural person” in clauses 4 8(5) 10 and 33 have been omitted and replaced with “person”. 
The word “testator” is an archaic term that has also been done away with. I do not think it is a term that really means anything to the person in the street so we have changed that term to “will-maker” in clause 6. We have defined it as “a person who makes changes revokes or revives a will;” and we have made it clear that it is the equivalent of the old Latin terms “testator” or “testatrix”. The consequential changes appear throughout the legislation. 
We have also done away with the cumbersome term “testamentary document” in clause 6 and have suggested the use of the far more commonly used term “will”. The definition of “will” in clause 8 has been extended to cover what was previously also included in the definition of testamentary document including documents like codicils that change wills or documents that revoke or revive wills and consequential changes have been made throughout. 
“Testamentary action” is another clumsy term that we have done away with. We recommend substituting it for a slightly longer definition but one that hopefully will mean more to the layperson: making changing revoking and/or reviving a will. I hope that the public in dealing with the legislation will find it more comprehensible because of the changes recommended. 
I also draw the attention of the Committee of the whole House to clause 6 generally. We have made some other changes. For example in relation to the definition of “de facto relationship” we have provided simply that the definition of de facto relationship in the Interpretation Act 1999 will apply. We have tried to do away with the need for the reader of the legislation to go to the Interpretation Act to work out what that definition is. We have actually just incorporated the definition of “de facto relationship” from the Interpretation Act into the Wills Bill directly and it ought to make it a much easier thing to refer to. 
Probably the other pertinent comment to make is that I understand that a Supplementary Order Paper will be moved to change the commencement date of the legislation from 1 July to 1 September this year. That is to allow for consequential amendments to be made to the probate rules and forms in the High Court Rules. Obviously a 2-month extension will make parliamentary counsel’s job easier and will allow the drafting to occur in a timely and non-hurried fashion. 
Those are my comments on Part 1. I think that some sensible changes are certainly set out in the report back from the committee and I would commend them.