Ms Catherine Cox:

There are also additional costs to the family member, because they have to apply to the court if they want to be a decision-making representative. There are about 18,000 families in this country who are family carers and caring for someone with a profound disability, and who this Act does not really consider. Those 18,000 families, potentially, will have to go to the courts to become DMRs, because the person they are caring for does not have capacity. Those parents are a little bit in limbo at the moment. It could take them a year or two years depending on how the courts are backed up, if all of these families suddenly come forward and realise they need to go to the court to become this decision-making representative.

Those families have not really been considered in this legislation. As Ms Duffy said, we believe this is positive legislation. It will bring about positive change, probably in the next five to ten years. However, in the next three years, it could create a lot of challenges for family carers who need to go to court to become decision-making representatives. It is positive legislation, but there are definitely challenges there. We believe that family carers were not considered when the final Act was being commenced.