Living Will vs Advance Directive in Tasmania: What's the Difference?
"Living Will" Is Not a Tasmanian Legal Term
If you search for "living will" in Tasmanian legislation, you will not find it. The term does not appear in the Guardianship and Administration Act 1995, the Powers of Attorney Act 2000, or any other Tasmanian statute. It is an American term that has entered common usage in Australia through media and general conversation, but it has no formal legal status in Tasmania.
This matters because using the wrong terminology can lead you to the wrong forms, the wrong registry, and ultimately a document that may not carry the legal weight you assume it does.
What Tasmania Actually Uses
Tasmania's legal framework for documenting future medical wishes uses three specific instruments, each with its own statutory name:
Advance Care Directive (ACD)
The statutory ACD is the closest equivalent to what Americans call a living will. It is a written document recording your specific medical treatment consents and refusals — which interventions you want, which you refuse, and under what circumstances. The ACD is governed by Part 5A of the Guardianship and Administration Act 1995 (introduced by the Guardianship and Administration Amendment (Advance Care Directives) Act 2021, commenced 21 November 2022).
A properly made ACD — using the approved Tasmanian Health Service form, with two independent witnesses — is legally binding. Clinicians must follow your documented refusals unless specific override conditions apply under Section 35U.
Registration with TASCAT is free and optional but strongly recommended. The ACD covers:
- Treatment refusals (CPR, ventilation, artificial nutrition, specific medications)
- Treatment consents (what you do want in specific scenarios)
- Your values and what quality of life means to you
- Trigger conditions (when your refusals should take effect)
Enduring Guardian (EG)
This is the closest equivalent to what Americans call a "healthcare proxy" or "healthcare power of attorney." An Enduring Guardian is a person you appoint to make personal and healthcare decisions on your behalf if you lose decision-making capacity.
The key difference from a living will: an EG is a person-appointment, not a set of written instructions. Your guardian makes decisions in real time, responding to clinical situations as they arise. Your ACD provides the written instructions; your guardian handles everything the ACD does not cover.
Registration with TASCAT is mandatory ($88.20).
Enduring Power of Attorney (EPOA)
The EPOA covers financial and property decisions only. It has nothing to do with medical care or personal welfare. It is registered with the Land Titles Office in Hobart ($177.38 for FY 2026–2027) and is governed by the Powers of Attorney Act 2000.
Americans sometimes confuse "power of attorney" with "healthcare power of attorney." In Tasmania, an EPOA is strictly financial. Medical decision-making authority belongs to the Enduring Guardian.
Common Law Directives Still Exist
Tasmania recognises both statutory ACDs and common law advance directives. A common law directive is any written (or even verbal) expression of your medical wishes that was made voluntarily and with capacity. It does not need to be on the official form, does not need witnesses, and cannot be registered with TASCAT.
Common law directives have significant limitations:
- They cannot be formally registered, so hospitals may not know they exist
- Their enforceability depends on whether the treating clinician is satisfied that the directive is genuine, voluntary, and applicable to the current situation
- They are more vulnerable to challenge from family members
- They lack the procedural safeguards (witnessing, capacity confirmation) that make statutory ACDs robust
A statutory ACD is always preferable. The common law route is mainly relevant for people who made directives before the 2022 statutory framework came into effect and have not yet updated them.
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The Terminology Translation Table
If you are researching advance care planning and encountering terms from different jurisdictions, here is how they map to Tasmanian instruments:
| Term Used Elsewhere | Tasmanian Equivalent | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Living will | Advance Care Directive (ACD) | Records your medical wishes and treatment refusals |
| Healthcare proxy | Enduring Guardian (EG) | Appoints someone to make healthcare decisions for you |
| Healthcare power of attorney | Enduring Guardian (EG) | Same as above — not covered by the EPOA in Tasmania |
| Advance health directive | Advance Care Directive (ACD) | QLD/WA term for the same concept |
| Advance personal plan | Not used in Tasmania | NT term |
| Medical power of attorney | Enduring Guardian (EG) | No such instrument exists separately in Tasmania |
| DNR / DNACPR | Goals of Care Plan (GOC) Phase B/C/D | A clinical order, not a patient-authored document |
Why the Distinction Between ACD and EG Matters
Your ACD and your Enduring Guardian serve complementary but legally distinct functions. The ACD takes priority on any matter it directly addresses — if your ACD says "I refuse CPR," your guardian cannot override that and consent to CPR. But the ACD cannot anticipate every possible medical scenario. Your guardian fills the gaps, making decisions on issues your directive does not cover, guided by your documented values.
Without an ACD, your guardian has no written reference for your wishes and must rely on their own understanding of what you would have wanted — which is legally and practically weaker. Without a guardian, your ACD's coverage ends at the edges of what you thought to write down, and unanticipated decisions may require a formal application through TASCAT.
Getting Both Documents Right
The Tasmania Advance Directive & Living Will Kit covers both instruments — and the financial EPOA — in the correct sequence. It walks through drafting clinically precise ACD refusal language that maps to hospital Goals of Care phases, then completing the Enduring Guardian appointment with the mandatory September 2024 acknowledgement. The kit uses Tasmanian-specific terminology throughout, so you are working with the right concepts from the start rather than translating from American or interstate frameworks.
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