Living Will in Western Australia: What You Actually Need
Why "Living Will" Doesn't Exist in WA Law
If you search for "living will Western Australia," you will find plenty of results — but none of them point to an actual WA legal document called a living will. That is because the term does not exist in Western Australian statute.
What most people mean when they say "living will" is covered by the Advance Health Directive (AHD) under Part 9B of the Guardianship and Administration Act 1990. The AHD does the same job that a living will does in the United States or United Kingdom: it records your decisions about future medical treatment so doctors know what to do if you lose the ability to communicate.
The difference is not just a name change. WA's AHD is a prescribed statutory form with specific mandatory sections, witnessing requirements, and legal force that generic "living will" templates from overseas or interstate may not carry. Using a downloaded American living-will template in a Perth hospital would not create a WA AHD or carry the same statutory protection.
What the AHD Covers
An AHD lets you record binding consent or refusal for specific medical treatments. In practice, this means decisions about:
- CPR and mechanical ventilation — whether you want resuscitation attempted in a cardiac arrest
- Artificial nutrition and hydration — tube feeding and IV fluids when you can no longer eat or drink
- Dialysis — kidney replacement therapy in the context of terminal illness
- Palliative sedation — medication to manage pain and distress, even if it may shorten life
- Specific surgical procedures — consent or refusal of operations you can anticipate based on a known condition
The statutory form structures these decisions into Part 4, which is one of three mandatory parts. You must complete at least one binding treatment decision for the AHD to be valid. "No heroic measures" or "keep me comfortable" on their own are not specific enough — clinicians need concrete instructions they can act on under pressure.
What the AHD Does Not Cover
Two things sit outside an AHD's scope:
Personal and lifestyle decisions. If you lose capacity and someone needs to decide where you live, which support services you receive, or whether you enter residential aged care — those decisions require a separate appointment: an Enduring Power of Guardianship (EPG). The AHD only handles medical treatment.
Voluntary Assisted Dying. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2019 requires you to maintain decision-making capacity throughout the entire process. Since an AHD only activates when you have lost capacity, you cannot use it to request or consent to VAD. These two legal frameworks are mutually exclusive.
Free Download
Get the Western Australia — Advance Directive Quick-Start
Everything in this article as a printable checklist — plus action plans and reference guides you can start using today.
Why Interstate Templates Are Dangerous
Each Australian state has its own advance care planning framework:
- NSW uses an Advance Care Directive under common law; there is no legislation governing these directives
- Victoria uses an Advance Care Directive under the Medical Treatment Planning and Decisions Act 2016
- Queensland uses an Advance Health Directive under the Powers of Attorney Act 1998
- South Australia uses an Advance Care Directive under the Advance Care Directives Act 2013
While these documents all serve a broadly similar purpose, each has different validity requirements: different witnessing rules, different form structures, different provisions about who can challenge them. A Queensland AHD signed in front of a single witness would be invalid in WA, which requires two witnesses with at least one authorised under the Oaths, Affidavits and Statutory Declarations Act 2005.
If you have moved to WA from another state, your existing directive may carry some weight as evidence of your wishes, but it does not have the same statutory force as a properly executed WA AHD. The safest path is to complete a new WA-specific form.
How to Complete a WA AHD
- Download the prescribed form from HealthyWA (not a third-party template)
- Discuss treatment options with your GP so your Part 4 decisions reflect realistic clinical scenarios
- Complete Parts 1 (personal details), 4 (treatment decisions), and 6 (witnessing) — cross out any optional parts you leave blank
- Sign in front of two witnesses, at least one authorised under the OASD Act 2005 (current GPs, pharmacists, lawyers, JPs, police officers, and nurses all qualify)
- Distribute copies to your GP, your family, and any appointed enduring guardian
- Upload to My Health Record via myGov — scan in black-and-white at 300 dpi to stay under the 20 MB file limit
The document does not expire, but clinicians can "read down" an AHD older than ten years if they believe medical advances have changed the landscape since you wrote it. A brief review every few years can help show that it remains current.
The Bottom Line
If you are searching for a living will in Western Australia, you need an Advance Health Directive. The government publishes the form for free. What the form does not give you is annotated guidance, a witnessing compliance checklist, or a walkthrough of the clinical decisions in Part 4 — the sections where most self-completed directives fail.
The Western Australia Advance Directive & Living Will Kit bridges that gap: step-by-step form completion, authorised-witness verification, and a My Health Record upload guide in a single download.
Get Your Free Western Australia — Advance Directive Quick-Start
Download the Western Australia — Advance Directive Quick-Start — a printable guide with checklists, scripts, and action plans you can start using today.