Nominees
A nominee is someone who can act on your behalf when accessing the National Redress Scheme. To tell us that you want someone to act for you, you and your nominee will need to complete the Redress Nominee Form.
A nominee can be a family member, friend, legal guardian or support service. Your nominee should be someone who you trust and who respects your privacy.
A nominee must act in your best interest at all times and it is important you talk to your nominee about how you would like them to act for you.
Types of nominees
There are two types of redress nominees.
- Assistance nominees; and
- Legal nominees
Assistance nominees
You can use an assistance nominee by completing the nominee form and returning the form to the Scheme. This form tells the Scheme that you and your nominee agree to this arrangement.
An assistance nominee can:
- Help you complete your application for redress,
- Receive copies of all letters,
- Ask questions about your application for redress,
- Receive phone calls about your application for redress,
- Provide information,
- Ask for an offer of redress to be reviewed
An assistance nominee cannot:
- apply for redress, or
- accept or decline an offer on your behalf.
This means that you will still need to sign the declaration in your application and sign your acceptance document yourself.
Legal nominees
A legal nominee does not have to be a lawyer.
A person can be your legal nominee if they already have the power to make decisions for you, under state, territory or Commonwealth law (for example, if you are under a guardianship order or someone has power of attorney for you).
The Scheme can only appoint a legal nominee with their written consent and taking into account your wishes regarding the arrangement.
These arrangements are in place to ensure that people who may not have the capacity to apply for and make decisions about redress on their own (for example, if they have an intellectual disability), can still access redress with someone acting on their behalf.
If you have a legal nominee, the Scheme will still take your wishes into account and legal nominees are still bound to act in your best interests at all times.
A legal nominee can:
- Do anything an assistance nominee can do,
- Apply for redress on your behalf, and
- Accept or decline an offer of redress on your behalf.
This means your legal nominee can sign documents on your behalf.
Changing your nominee
You can change your assistance nominee at any time by having your nominee let us know in writing, or, if you wish, you may contact us directly. A legal nominee can only be changed if your legal arrangements change or your legal nominee asks.
If you no longer wish to use a nominee, you or your nominee can let the Scheme know in writing that they no longer will be acting as a nominee.
The Redress Nominee Form is available as a fillable pdf form and a printable pdf form. You can download the fillable form to your desktop to save it.