Aged Care Act 2024 Decision Making — What Changes for Families

Why the Aged Care Act 2024 Matters for Decision-Making

Australia's Aged Care Act 2024 is the federal framework for older Australians who receive funded services, and it includes a process for registering appointed decision-makers with My Aged Care. Decision-making authority itself remains governed by state and territory laws.

If you hold an enduring power of attorney or guardianship appointment for a parent receiving aged care, these changes affect you directly. The Act does not replace state-level EPOA and guardianship legislation — those instruments remain the legal source of your authority — and My Aged Care has a process for registering an appointed decision-maker. Registration does not expand the authority granted by the state or territory instrument.

Start With the Parent's Own Decision-Making

Capacity is functional and decision-specific, and a parent may retain capacity with support. Before relying on a substitute decision-maker, identify the particular decision and whether your parent can understand, weigh, and communicate a choice with appropriate support.

In practice, a diagnosis alone does not answer the capacity question. Your parent may be able to make some decisions even with cognitive impairment, while a state or territory instrument or tribunal order determines who may act if they cannot make a particular decision.

This is a meaningful shift from how many facilities operated under the old Act, where staff often defaulted to speaking with the family and bypassing the resident entirely once a dementia diagnosis was on file.

How Substitute Decision-Making Works in Aged Care

There is no single national substitute-decision-maker hierarchy to apply across Australia. The relevant authority depends on the state or territory instrument and the subject matter of the decision:

1. A person appointed under the applicable state or territory instrument — for example, an EPOA for financial matters, an enduring guardian, a medical treatment decision-maker, or a decision-maker under an Advance Personal Plan, depending on the jurisdiction and scope
2. A guardian or administrator appointed by the relevant state or territory civil and administrative tribunal (NCAT, VCAT, QCAT, SAT, SACAT, TASCAT, ACAT, or NTCAT)

Your EPOA or guardianship appointment still comes from state legislation. The federal aged-care system also provides a process to register an appointed decision-maker with My Aged Care, but that registration does not create a new state-law substitute decision-maker category.

How Providers Should Match Authority to the Decision

Aged care providers need to identify the relevant decision-making authority and its scope when dealing with you as attorney or guardian:

Consent and decision scope. Before you consent to a care decision, confirm whether your parent can make that decision and whether your authority covers it. A financial EPOA is not automatically authority for personal, lifestyle, or medical decisions.

Scope, not blanket authority. Your parent's wishes remain relevant even when someone else has authority to act. A provider should not treat a diagnosis or a family role as blanket authority; the applicable state or territory instrument must cover the decision.

Restrictive-practice decisions. Restrictive-practice functions in enduring-guardianship documents can be an aged-care onboarding issue. If a residential facility proposes restraint or sedation for behaviour management, ask which state or territory authority and process it is relying on; do not assume a financial EPOA covers the decision.

Complaints and Escalation

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission is the agency for formal complaints about aged-care facility standards and care agreements. OPAN also provides independent advocacy for families navigating aged-care rights and disputes.

If a provider ignores your parent's documented wishes or disputes the scope of your authority, keep a written record and use the provider's complaints process, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, or OPAN as appropriate.

What This Means for Your EPOA or Guardianship Documents

The Aged Care Act 2024 does not change the validity requirements for state-level instruments. Your Victorian EPOA, NSW enduring guardianship, or Queensland Form 2 still needs to meet all the witnessing and execution rules of its home jurisdiction. But the new Act does create practical pressure to ensure your documents are current and comprehensive.

When a provider asks for authority, check that it covers the specific decision being made. If your EPOA only grants financial powers, it should not be used for care-plan consent; use the personal or medical instrument required in that jurisdiction, or the personal powers in a combined instrument where the jurisdiction permits them. A facility may ask for separate evidence of authority rather than treating a financial EPOA as blanket authority.

If your parent's documents predate the Act's commencement and you have not reviewed them recently, it is worth checking that the scope of authority matches the decisions you will need to make. The Enduring Power of Attorney and Guardianship toolkit walks through each state's instrument types and helps you confirm you have the right combination of documents for both financial and personal decisions.

The Bottom Line

The Aged Care Act 2024 does not replace your state EPOA or guardianship documents. It provides a federal aged-care process for registering appointed decision-makers, while families still need to match state or territory authority to the decisions they are making and follow the relevant provider, complaint, and advocacy pathways.

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