Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I direct my question to the Attorney General. Is the Minister aware that I read his comments on the mini-budget decision to merge the offices of the Public Trustee and Protective Commissioner over which he has responsibility? Is the Minister aware that this merger may have a detrimental impact on the quality of support to people with disabilities and who have government public guardians or financial managers? Is the Minister aware that the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal's [IPART] report to the Government, which examined these and other sensitive issues, has not yet been made public, but the report, I believe, recommended that public funding to the Office of the Protective Commissioner be increased and not curtailed? Given that New South Wales is now in a position where its principal legislation in this area, the Protected Estates Act 1983, explicitly violates fundamental rights set out in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities— [Time expired.]

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: First of all, I do not accept the premise of the member's questions about the proposed merger between the offices of the Public Trustee and the Protective Commissioner. Indeed, in most other jurisdictions in Australia—just about all jurisdictions—the two offices are merged. There are many synergies between those two operations, particularly in the way they deal with their investments. There is a lot of capacity for us to reduce our costs and ensure that we improve our service delivery to the people those offices are designed to assist. The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal report will be released in due course together with the Government's response.