September 2024 Enduring Guardian Changes Tasmania: What the New Rules Mean

What Changed in September 2024

The Tasmanian Government amended the Guardianship and Administration Act 1995 with changes that took effect in September 2024. These amendments modified the statutory duties of Enduring Guardians and tightened the connection between an Enduring Guardian appointment and the appointor's Advance Care Directive.

The changes are not cosmetic. They affect the validity of new appointments and the practical obligations of existing guardians.

The Mandatory ACD Acknowledgement

The most significant change is a new procedural requirement: when you appoint an Enduring Guardian, the nominated guardian must sign a declaration confirming that they have obtained and understood your Advance Care Directive.

Before September 2024, a guardian could be appointed and registered without any formal engagement with the appointor's ACD. The guardian might never have read it, might not know it existed, or might disagree with its contents — and the appointment was still valid.

Under the new rules, the Instrument of Appointment now includes a mandatory acknowledgement section. Your nominated guardian must sign to confirm:

• They have been given a copy of your ACD (or have been told that no ACD exists)
• They have read and understood the directive's contents
• They understand their obligation to give effect to the ACD's instructions when making decisions on your behalf

TASCAT will reject any Instrument of Appointment that lacks this signed acknowledgement.

Why This Matters in Practice

The acknowledgement requirement solves a real problem that emerged in the years following the 2022 introduction of statutory ACDs. Families were creating ACDs and Enduring Guardian appointments as separate, disconnected exercises. A person might draft an ACD with specific treatment refusals — no CPR, no mechanical ventilation in a terminal illness scenario — and then appoint a family member as Enduring Guardian without ever discussing those refusal clauses with them.

When the medical crisis arrived, the guardian faced decisions they had never considered, about medical wishes they had never read. In some cases, guardians made decisions that directly contradicted the appointor's ACD, either because they disagreed with it or because they genuinely did not know what it said.

The September 2024 changes force that conversation to happen at the point of appointment — before capacity is lost, before the emergency, and with the formal documentation to prove it happened.

Impact on New Appointments

If you are appointing an Enduring Guardian after September 2024, you must:

1. Use the current TASCAT form. Pre-September 2024 forms do not include the mandatory acknowledgement section. Using an old version will result in rejection at TASCAT.

2. Give your guardian your ACD. If you have a registered ACD, provide them with a copy. If you have an unregistered ACD or a common law directive, provide that. If you have not yet made an ACD, your guardian still signs — they acknowledge that no ACD currently exists.

3. Have the conversation. The acknowledgement is not just a signature formality. Your guardian should genuinely understand what you have written in your ACD — particularly any treatment refusals, trigger conditions, and values statements. If they are unwilling to honour specific instructions, you need to know that now, not during a medical emergency.

Impact on Existing Registrations

If you registered an Enduring Guardian before September 2024, your existing registration remains valid. The amendments do not retroactively invalidate pre-existing appointments.

However, the legislative intent is clear: guardians should be familiar with the appointor's ACD regardless of when the appointment was made. If your guardian has never read your directive, the practical risk is the same now as it was before — they may make decisions that conflict with your documented wishes.

Consider voluntarily updating your arrangement by:

• Giving your existing guardian a copy of your current ACD
• Walking them through your treatment refusals and values statements
• Discussing specific scenarios: what should happen if you develop terminal cancer, what if you have a cardiac arrest, what if you need to transition to palliative care

If you want to formally bring your appointment into line with the new requirements, you would need to revoke your existing EG ($62.72 revocation fee) and lodge a new Instrument of Appointment with the current form ($88.20 registration fee). This is not legally required but provides the strongest documentation.

Practical Implications for Families

The Adult Child as Guardian

The most common appointment pattern is a parent appointing an adult child as Enduring Guardian. The September 2024 changes create a structured framework for a conversation that many families avoid: what does the parent actually want at end of life, and is the child prepared to enforce those wishes — even when doing so means withholding treatment that might extend life?

This is not hypothetical. Studies consistently show that family members, under the emotional pressure of a medical crisis, overrule documented treatment refusals more often than they honour them. The mandatory acknowledgement does not eliminate this risk, but it eliminates the defence of "I did not know."

Joint or Multiple Guardians

If you have appointed joint guardians, each one must independently sign the ACD acknowledgement. This means each guardian must have received and read the ACD. For families with multiple siblings sharing the guardian role, the September 2024 requirements force every guardian into the same conversation — reducing the risk that one sibling reads the ACD while the others do not.

Using the Right Form

TASCAT publishes the current Instrument of Appointment on its website under the Guardianship Stream forms section. Before completing the form, verify the version date — if it does not include the guardian acknowledgement section (typically the last page before the witness declarations), it is an outdated version.

If you downloaded forms before September 2024, discard them and download the current version. Do not attempt to add an acknowledgement page to an old form — TASCAT requires the complete, unmodified current instrument.

Putting It All Together

The September 2024 changes reinforce a principle that was always implicit in Tasmanian law: your Enduring Guardian and your Advance Care Directive are not independent documents. They are two pieces of a single framework, and they must be aligned.

The Tasmania Advance Directive & Living Will Kit walks through both instruments in the correct sequence — drafting clinically precise ACD refusal language first, then completing the Enduring Guardian appointment with the mandatory acknowledgement. The kit includes the family conversation scripts that give structure to the discussion the new rules require.

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