Shanks Katrina: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shanks Katrina: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2007. Volume:642;Page:11754. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 As well as the people who have spoken before me it is my pleasure to support this Protection of Personal and Property Rights Amendment Bill tonight. It went through the Social Services Committee which I am a member of and it had support all the way through by the whole committee. I must commend the officials for the great work they did and the support that they gave us through the process because they really were quite invaluable. At the same time I would also like to recognise the Law Commission which gave an absolutely fantastic submission on this legislation guided us through the process had a really good input into it and added a lot of value to this bill we are looking at tonight. 
This bill actually came about as a result of recommendations made by the Law Commission in 2001 in a report published on the misuse of enduring powers of attorney so once again I congratulate the Law Commission on ensuring that enduring powers of attorney have been updated with this legislation for those who are using it from now going forward. The purpose of this bill is to increase the safeguards against the abuse of elderly and disabled people. By law the enduring power of attorney allows people to be representatives on someone’s behalf because that person is no longer able to do so. 
Some of the key points coming out of this good legislation are about legal executives. Legal executives came to the select committee and gave a fantastic submission—it was very very articulate and well-written—saying that they feel they should be able to witness a donor’s signature to help reduce the cost of the enduring powers of attorney for those who were getting them. It was a very good submission that they gave. By the end of it the committee came out with the conclusion that yes legal executives should be recognised but on certain conditions—those who have 12 months’ experience who are registered as a legal executive and who are supervised by a lawyer will be able to witness a donor’s signature. So that is a good thing and it will help to keep the cost of the enduring powers of attorney down. These legal executives do a great job they are very much hands-on with their clients and they are in tune with what their clients need because they talk to them very regularly so this is a good step forward. 
One of the other changes that came about was that lawyers in the same firm can witness an enduring power of attorney signature. This was brought about to also ensure that the cost of enduring powers of attorneys were kept down and this will again add value to the process as they were not allowed to do so before. 
The other change is the need for medical certificates. Medical certificates are not needed to make decisions on matters of personal care and welfare that are not considered significant. This allows the holder of the enduring power of attorney or the lawyer to make insignificant decisions for an individual and not have to go back and get a medical certificate every time they go to do something they consider to be minor and insignificant for the client. The bill does require that an attorney be satisfied that the donor is mentally incapable when making decisions on significant matters and it was very important that we made the distinction between significant matters and insignificant matters in this point of law. 
The donor has to pay for medical examinations that are reasonably required for the purposes of certifying the donor’s mental incapacity. We put that provision in there to say that if one has an enduring power of attorney and the lawyer is hunting around for someone who can be the certifier of the donor’s incapability then he or she has to pay those medical expenses only once and after that the lawyer would have to pay for the rest. So it is to stop people from hunting around and trying to find someone to be the certifier. 
Another adjustment to this bill is that where a donor is unlikely to gain capacity a medical certificate can remain valid indefinitely. So for those people who are incapacitated who are not going to get better and have got deteriorating conditions a medical certificate can be valid for them ongoing as obviously this could be very very expensive for the client and this also ensures that the process works smoothly. 
The final thing I would like to raise is that attorneys must keep records of all financial transactions in relation to donors’ finances. It has been noted in the past that lawyers have done transactions on behalf of clients and not kept the records which I find a little hard to believe because lawyers are normally very good at keeping records and understand tax law very well. I would assume they would keep them for 7 years but this has not been happening and this legislation will change that as well. So now lawyers will be required to keep all financial transactions for their own clients. 
It is my pleasure to stand here tonight and endorse this good legislation that the select committee has worked on and I also congratulate the officials and the committee and all the submitters themselves on adding value to this process.