Biased Tribunal Rejects Proposed Financial Manager

The Four Corners Documentary which screened exactly three weeks before these Reasons for Decision were completed makes a mockery of the integrity of Public Trustees around Australia and yet...

In paragraphs 69-70 NCAT habitually trotted out their outdated opinion that NSWTG has an “impeccable reputation”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Firstly, why even bother having a hearing if this is taken as fact?

Secondly, she ignored the proposed financial manager, Gary White, who told her of fraudulent payments authorised by NSWTG which he had uncovered in court. Instead The Member went digging up an opinion from a hearing from 29 years ago. Never mind that in 2010 the NSWTG acknowledged that clients' money had been "lost" - in fact the Tribunal was told in the application that NSWTG "lost" track of this particular client's $20k for twelve weeks.

The only reasons (given in paragraph 76) for why the Member refused to appoint Gary was the above “impeccable reputation” of NSWTG and the fact that he is not family, though she does so deliberately obliquely. No other reason is given.

There is precedent which contradicts this reasoning: where the proposed manager had neither met the TAG client nor a sibling who opposed the proposal. This person did not even have experience with managing a client with TAG oversight which Gary does (many years experience).

You can verify on caselaw that the "impeccable reputation" citation copypasta is a strong NCAT tradition.