Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. But, in terms of the process, you are taking away. You are taking away people's options to have legal scrutiny of their process—that is, you have been very voluble with all the things that will be enhanced in this process, and that is acknowledged. We had that process. We still do not know what the result of the new tool will be. You rightly said we do not know. Nothing about having a choice to take legal action stops having that option either. The actual closing down of choice, of options, is by this legislation. You said it was an untidy process and that it was uncomfortable. Well, at what cost and to whom? The amendments we are putting forward can work. There is nothing illegal about them.

I have two questions before we go to the process of the vote. Critical to informed choice was the provision by the government of enhanced packages around legal advice and financial counselling advice. At the time that we looked at this discussion earlier, there were no details around that. We raised concerns at our inquiry about what the options would be across the country for having firms and support that would be able to effectively deal with the sensitivities of people who have intellectual disability and their families, who are fearful for that. Can we have any information about what progress the department has made in making sure that those options will be there in the process of making a decision?