Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Australia, Institute of Public Accountants and the SMSF Association welcome the opportunity to provide comments on the consultation paper titled ‘Achieving Greater Consistency in Laws for Financial Enduring Powers of Attorney’.

Broadly, the Joint Bodies would welcome measures that seek to improve the harmonization of the operation of the enduring powers of attorney (EPOA) legislative framework across the state and territory jurisdictions, improve accessibility and simplicity, whilst balancing vital protections and integrity measures.

We acknowledge that general powers of attorney’s (GPOA) and medical powers of attorneys (MPOA) are out of scope of this review. However, there are crucial elements of this consultation which have relevancy, and a strong alignment to these other attorney relationships. Issues on the operation of the respective powers are important given the gravity of the decision making involved and the potential for the attorney to have a conflict of interest and not necessarily act in the principal’s best interest. Who can be appointed an attorney should similarly be considered. Greater consistency should be applied across each of the three power of attorney instruments in these areas.