Advocacy Tasmania and Community Legal Centres Tasmania today welcomed the state government’s announcement of the changes to Public Trustee fees for people on Administration Orders.
Up until now the fees charged have commonly been around $1500.00 per annum for a service that the overwhelming majority of other states and territories provided either free of charge or for a nominal fee. This equated to up to 7.5% of the income of a person on a disability support pension.
The problem had been highlighted in a 2014 report prepared by the two organisations entitled “The Public Trustee and a Fair and Proportionate Fee Structure for Represented Persons”, but the issue was first raised with the government of the day back in 2007.
http://www.advocacytasmania.org.au/publications/PublicTrusteeFeesPaper.pdf
“This is very welcome news” said Ben Bartl, of Community Legal Centres Tasmania. “This is a problem that has impacted on the lives of some of Tasmania’s most disadvantaged citizens for the last decade. We are very pleased that the Government has made the decision to bring Tasmania in line with the zero or minimal fees charged in other states”.
“The elimination of fees for people on a pension and with assets less than $10,000 will mean that people will not have to go without essential items such as food and electricity, which has previously been the case,” said Ken Hardaker from Advocacy Tasmania.
“At a time of year when many people feel experience great financial stress this decision will make Christmas a little brighter for those affected” said Ken.
Ken Hardaker, Benedict Bartl
