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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-28 Daily Xml
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Statutory Declarations

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (14:51): My question is to the Attorney-General. Can the Attorney-General update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is providing relief to South Australians by expanding the range of people who can witness statutory declarations in response to COVID-19?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (14:51): It is with pleasure that I answer this question from the member for Flinders, who probably like very few others in this chamber understands the tyranny of distance and the challenges that brings about when we have legal requirements for the face-to-face witnessing of documents—and there are plenty of them.

Members would be familiar, when they have prepared their wills, that they need two adult witnesses, preferably of sound mind, to witness the document, across, too, a number of other documents, including statutory declarations which require a signatory on a face-to-face meeting and the documents being witnessed by a commissioner for taking affidavits in the Supreme Court of South Australia, a justice of the peace, a notary public or a proclaimed member of the police force.

Sadly, proclaimed bank managers have fallen off the list over the years. I don't think we actually have any proclaimed bank managers anymore. In any event, it's a very short list and it means that it is necessary for their presence for the statutory declarations to be undertaken. It's also fitting that we re-look at the criteria and what is necessary for some of these documents.

A common example is in respect of an expiable offence where a registered owner of the vehicle can complete a statutory declaration to prove that they were not the driver at the time of an expiable offence having been committed. It might be handy for some members of this house to actually note that. There are a number of JP services as a result of COVID-19 that have been withdrawn. Some of them have been from CBS, others have been from local councils that are of course wanting to protect both JPs in their area and also members of staff—

Ms Bedford: That doesn't help the public.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Well, in fact, I was just going to commend one of our members of the independent group who had raised in the parliament the issue of her concern for some in the electorate. Indeed, she was absolutely right—in fact, probably for the last men and women standing who were providing those services via their electorate offices. I commend those members who kept—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I just said that some of the last group in the state that were the last men and women standing were us, here in the parliament, who are providing those services in our electorates.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: That's all of us. I think some of you slowly closed off but, in any event, we maintained that service probably longer than any other, so I thank you all. However, I make the point that to try to deal with these issues—especially as our justice of the peace cohort in South Australia, of which we have many thousands of men and women who serve this area, is often of mature age and therefore COVID-19 has been an extra challenge for them to provide those services.

Under the COVID-19 emergency response regulations that we have promulgated, in particular section 16 for those who are following this, we have expanded the list of people who are available to lawfully provide witnesses to signatures under the Commonwealth Statutory Declarations Act. We have looked at their list and we have replicated that to be consistent here in South Australia, so we now have a much longer list.

For those of you who might recall the advance care directive debate in this house, that list of available signatories was replicated. There are a number of other threshold obligations in relation to advance care directives, such as having received advice to make an informed consent and the like, but we have expanded those and we are proud to have done so.

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