New principles for decisionmakers: Bill addresses conflict transactions and more

While no person expects, nor wishes, to experience a lack of capacity, the very real fact of life is that they may. Incapacity can be long term or short term and can impact everyone quite differently. The question of someone’s capacity to understand the nature and the effect of something is fraught with difficulty mainly because capacity is something that is very specific to the person and the type of decision they must make. With all this in mind, it is not doubt unsurprising that the impact of legal capacity is an area of increasing difficulty and, sadly, ripe for dispute. This past week, Queensland Parliament passed the Guardianship and Administration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (‘the Bill’) which included amendments to various Acts, including our Powers of Attorney Act 1998 (Qld) and the Guardianship and Administration Act 2000 (Qld).