Collins Judith: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Collins Judith: Protection of Personal and Property Rights  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:11975] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 That was a very worthy and frankly quite dull contribution from the member who has just resumed his seat Russell Fairbrother. Certainly the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Amendment Bill is a good bill and the National Party supports it. Of course it is quite stunning now to think that 19 years ago the then Labour Government considered that for some reason an attorney would not necessarily have to keep financial records when he or she was in charge of a donor’s property. I would have thought that was a pretty basic requirement and I think that most members in the House and certainly the public would think that if a person is put in the position of being an attorney for someone who is incapable of keeping and managing his or her own affairs the attorney would need to keep some sort of financial record of what he or she is doing on someone’s behalf. Certainly one would expect that. Unfortunately that was not done. It has taken 19 years for that to be corrected. 
I would like to hear from the Government exactly what sort of educational requirement there is at the moment. Is the Government advising the Law Society and people out there in the community who are attorneys on behalf of their relatives and family members that they will need to keep financial records having had 19 years of not having to keep one financial record? That seems to me to be something that is sadly missing from the bill. It would be very good for people to know what their requirements are. Most of us who are asked to be attorneys for people particularly under the enduring power of attorney system this bill is meant to deal with want to know what the rules are. If we are not told what they are then it is not very good to expect people just to know. Fortunately most people spend their life getting on and living earning income and paying the taxes that keep the country going; most people do not think about what is happening in this place. They do not know about the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Amendment Bill. 
It is incredibly important that we let people know what their new requirements and obligations are. If we do not then they are hardly to be blamed for not knowing. Unfortunately the law does not excuse ignorance of the law. There may in the future be some people who are not aware of their obligations and who end up being in a very difficult position because they have acted in accordance with the law for the last 19 years without anyone telling them otherwise. I would be very interested to know from the Government and from the Minister in charge of this bill—whoever that might be; I think it is the Minister of Justice Mark Burton wherever he may be—just what the Government intends to do to advise people of their new requirements. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Don’t expect an answer from him. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: My colleague Chris Finlayson says we should not expect answers from the Minister. I must say to Mr Finlayson that the Minister has been very quiet on this issue—as he is on most issues these days. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Particularly the Electoral Finance Bill. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Particularly the Electoral Finance Bill. It is incredibly important to recognise that enduring powers of attorney are a very very important issue. They are the sorts of things we need to put in place. [ 
Interruption 
] Unlike the member interjecting from the other side Ruth Dyson they are things that I have experience of. They are not to be entered into lightly. They require a tremendous amount of responsibility on behalf of the donee but at the same time people need to know what their obligations are. I have not seen anything from the New Zealand Law Society stating what the new rules will be. I would like to see them. I hope the society is listening and that it will do something about it because the last thing we want is for well-meaning relatives and friends to be put in a position where they have breached the law because we have changed it and no one has bothered to tell them. 
In conclusion I would like to say that this bill is a good bill but we need to let people know what the new requirements are so that they do not unwittingly breach the new rules and do not in their innocence find themselves in a very difficult position with people who may wish to take them on in a legal sense. That is something we need to address.