Wills Bill

Although I absolutely and totally endorse the comments of my good friend the member for North Shore about the Government’s rather lackadaisical and shallow legislative agenda, I for one am pleased that the Wills Bill is shortly to be passed because, as the commentary states, it restates the existing law governing wills. Some of that law—almost unbelievably, I am sure listeners will say—is incorporated in several statutes that go back to 1837. In my opinion it is high time that this Parliament looked at the legislation governing wills and made some necessary changes, in particular to bring the law together in one single statute and to express the law relating to wills in plain modern language that is clear and accessible.

There are very few certainties in life, and as the cliché goes, two of those certainties are death and taxes. We are all going to die. I am not simply referring to this Labour Government that is going to die. I am referring to those mere mortals who make up this House of Representatives from time to time. Whether or not we like it, we are all going to die. Therefore, it is necessary and indeed desirable that we have up-to-date wills that express in clear and accessible terms for our loved ones, and for the trustees who will administer estates, just what exactly it is that we want to be done with our property after death. That is why we need clear legislation in this area, above all.

I think the Law Commission is to be commended, because by and large it has done a very good job in this area. It came up with some good reports and, notwithstanding the valid criticisms made from this side of the Chamber about the legislative programme, as I said, the Minister is to be commended for getting this legislation into the House and getting it through its stages.

The changes proposed in the Supplementary Order Papers are, by and large, pretty minor fare and I am not going to quibble too much over them. But I do think I raised a very incisive point that the Minister has not addressed, and I want to dwell on it a little bit more because of the outstanding contribution—as, indeed, all his contributions are—of Dr Richard Worth, who picked up the point I made that 1 November is not the right day for the commencement of this legislation. It should be 2 November, because 1 November is All Saints Day or, I think as some Anglicans call it, All Hallows Day. Hallows comes from the old English halig, meaning a holy man or a saint. Of course in these modern and non-sexist times we would of course say “a holy person”. The Festival of All Saints was originally held on 1 May and was changed to 1 November in 834. Those of us who know about these things will know that Halloween—which also has that term hallows, coming from All Hallows Day—is held on 31 October.

But the important point, and this is why it is so exquisitely appropriate that we have 2 November as the commencement date, is that All Souls Day, certainly in Roman Catholic traditions—I do not know what the Protestants do—is the day one devotes to prayer and alms-giving on behalf of the faithful departed, who presumably and hopefully had signed wills before they went to meet their maker. I am not going to go into the detail of what Dr Worth said about how All Souls Day came to pass, but the fact of the matter is that it is an appropriate day for the commencement of this legislation, which as I said amounts to the first substantive reform of the law of wills since 1837.

So there we have it. The Justice and Electoral Committee worked hard on this legislation. There were not a great many submissions, but the two people I want to mention in particular who made a great contribution are Professor Bill Atkin from Victoria University and Professor Tony Angelo. They are examples of great submitters who not only went through the legislation in policy terms but, as it were, undertook a detailed exegetical analysis of the legislation to point out various faults, as a result of which some useful changes were made. The bill is a good piece of work by the hard-working and diligent Justice and Electoral Committee, some of whose members are enjoying a junket to Melbourne this week and some of whom are working hard in the Parliament dealing with this legislation. But putting that all to one side, it is good legislation. Let us move on and get it passed into law as quickly as possible, but hopefully bringing it into law on 2 November not 1 November.

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 129 in the name of the Hon Clayton Cosgrove to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.