Australia's law reform commission recommended in 2017 that a national register for enduring powers of attorney wait until all eight states and territories align their laws — as of February 2026 that alignment was not in place

What is happening?

An enduring power of attorney is a private legal document in which a person appoints someone else to manage their financial affairs, and it keeps working after the person loses the capacity to make decisions. In Australia each of the eight states and territories has its own law on how these documents are made, whether they must be registered and what a registration does.

On 2017-06-14 the Australian Law Reform Commission delivered Report 131, Elder Abuse—A National Legal Response, with 43 recommendations. Recommendation 5-3 proposed a national online register of enduring documents, but only as a second step: the register should be established after agreement on nationally consistent laws for enduring powers of attorney, enduring guardianship and other substitute decision-making, and after a national model enduring document had been developed. The register was designed from the start to wait for two prior conditions.

Neither condition has been met. The Attorney-General's Department consulted on a register design in 2021, the Standing Council of Attorneys-General noted in 2022-12 that alternative models for a register were being considered, and in 2023 the Standing Council consulted on making financial enduring power of attorney laws more consistent. A peer-reviewed commentary published online in February 2026 states that uniform laws across Australia and a standard national form are highly unlikely any time soon, and calls harmonisation an aspirational goal.

Meanwhile the registration rules still differ by jurisdiction. Queensland requires registration of an enduring power of attorney used for land dealings. New South Wales requires registration only for land dealings and certain share dealings. Victoria has no registration process at all.

Whose problem is this?

The sequence set in 2017 requires agreement among the Commonwealth and all eight jurisdictions before a register is built. The people who carry the cost of the gap are mostly not at the table where that agreement would be reached.

Where does this problem end?

The boundary matters because the hazard and the proposed remedy were both described in 2017 and nobody on the record disputes that the laws differ. What is missing is the agreement among governments that the remedy was designed to wait for.

What is the state now, and what should it be?

Now

What it should be. The Australian Law Reform Commission set a sequence, not a date: consistent laws, then a national model document, then a register. The 2023 consultation by the Standing Council of Attorneys-General stated a purpose of greater consistency in laws for financial enduring powers of attorney.

Needs a new measurementno opened document of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General, the Attorney-General's Department or any state or territory government sets a date by which consistent laws, a national model document or the register are to exist. Targets proposed by the legal profession or by the Australian Human Rights Commission are not used to fill this space.

How big is it?

The number of people exposed to harm through an enduring power of attorney cannot be derived from the sources opened for this dossier. What can be stated are survey indicators and one secondary estimate.

• A national survey run by the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2024-02, reported on 2024-09-10, found that 13 percent of respondents had ever made an enduring power of attorney document.
• Among respondents who had granted one, 52 percent had sought professional advice beforehand, and only 25 percent of appointed attorneys said they understood their responsibilities well.
• Among respondents who had granted an enduring power of attorney, 37 percent had given it to a person showing traits identified as risk factors for elder abuse. The denominator is people who granted one, not all respondents, and the traits are risk factors, not proof of abuse.
• A 2026 commentary cites estimates that an enduring power of attorney is involved in 50 to 85 percent of financial elder abuse cases. That range comes from two earlier sources that were not opened here.

The survey figures come from news reports of the Commission report, not from the report itself. Those reports also disagree on the sample, one describing more than 3,000 adults and another more than 6,000.

Under what conditions does it arise?

1. The document is private and the law that governs it is local. Each state and territory has its own law on these documents, so the same kind of document is made, registered and recognised under eight different sets of rules.

2. The national fix was sequenced behind the hardest step. Recommendation 5-3 placed the register after two conditions, and the first of them requires every jurisdiction to agree on consistent laws. A register that waits for unanimous agreement moves only as fast as the slowest government at the table.

3. Registration is partial where it exists. In Queensland registration is required when the document is used for land dealings. In New South Wales it is required only for land dealings and certain share dealings, so a document used for other purposes there need not be registered. In Victoria there is no registration process at all.

4. The register design itself raised questions that went back to the table. The information commissioner pointed out in 2021 that a register would hold health-related information, that third parties receiving information might fall outside the Privacy Act, and that data should be stored in Australia. By 2022-12 the Standing Council was considering alternative models.

What has been tried?

Every attempt on the record either proposed the sequence, consulted on a part of it, or argued again that the first step must come first. None of the opened sources records the first step being completed.

What was found?

Why is it still unsolved?

Coordination failure — the remedy was designed to wait for an agreement that requires every jurisdiction, and no mechanism sets a date for that agreement.

The register is not blocked by a missing design or an unknown hazard. It is blocked by its own position in a sequence. Recommendation 5-3 made the register the last of three steps and made the first step depend on consistent laws across all eight jurisdictions. Each jurisdiction already has a law of its own, so consistency requires each of them to change it, and the first condition is met only when all of them have done so.

The second part of the gap is that the sequence has no clock. The Standing Council of Attorneys-General can note progress, consult and consider alternatives without any of those steps being tied to a completion date. Nothing in the opened record commits any government to a timetable, and the most recent opened source describes harmonisation as aspirational.

The third part is that the steps loop back. The 2021 register design consultation did not proceed to a register, and by 2022 the register itself was back to alternative models. The legal profession has argued that building a register before the laws align would add cost and confusion, which keeps the register behind the first step. Each round of work therefore returns the problem to the same starting point, consistent laws, where no opened source records agreement.

What observation would mean it is solved?

Candidates — (a) the Standing Council of Attorneys-General agrees a national model law for financial enduring powers of attorney and all eight jurisdictions enact it (b) a national model enduring document is adopted (c) a national register operates in which a third party can check whether an enduring power of attorney is current and valid in any jurisdiction.

(a) alone is weaker than it looks. An agreed model law can be enacted with local variations wide enough that the differences the register was meant to bridge remain. Enactment in some jurisdictions but not others leaves the first condition unmet.

(c) alone counts a database. A register that is voluntary, or that third parties are not required to check, records documents without changing how they are used. The Australian Law Reform Commission tied the register to consistent laws precisely because a register of inconsistent documents would record differences rather than remove them.

None of the three measures harm. No opened source reports a national count of financial abuse through enduring powers of attorney, so even a completed sequence would not by itself show whether that abuse fell. The three have to be read together, and alongside any future count of the harm.

What is it connected to?

Fills with researchelder abuse response services, guardianship and administration tribunals, banking practices for recognising attorneys, and the national plan on elder abuse. Relation type and evidence grade were not confirmed in this round.

What these sources do not say

• Whether any model law was agreed after the 2023 consultation. The consultation page records the consultation and its dates. No opened source states whether the Standing Council endorsed a model law afterwards, or whether any jurisdiction has enacted one.
• Why consistent laws have not been reached. No opened source carries an explanation from the Standing Council of Attorneys-General or the Attorney-General's Department. The only reasoning on the record about sequencing comes from the legal profession, which is not a government position.
• The constitutional basis for state control. The sources do not state which constitutional provisions prevent the Commonwealth from legislating a single national scheme. That this sits with the states and territories is a general reading of the federal structure, not something an opened source sets out.
• Whether the Standing Council has discussed enduring powers of attorney in 2026. No opened source states what its 2026 meetings covered.
• How many people are harmed through an enduring power of attorney each year. No official national count separates this form of financial abuse. The 50 to 85 percent range is a secondary citation.
• The actual survey sample. One outlet reports more than 3,000 adults and another more than 6,000, and neither acknowledges the other.
• The status of the model law drafted with the Queensland Public Advocate. No opened source states whether any government adopted it.
• When the state law society submission was made. The article reporting it is dated 2025-08; the submission date itself is not given.
• Whether registration reduces abuse. No opened source measures abuse rates in jurisdictions with registration against those without.

See the evidence

No government decision document after 2023 was read. The Australian Law Reform Commission recommendation, the report overview, the 2023 consultation page and the information commissioner submission were opened directly and are the primary public documents here. The 2022 communique was read in a republication. The survey figures come from three news outlets reporting the Australian Human Rights Commission report, and they agree on the 37 percent figure while disagreeing on the sample size, which is left visible rather than settled. The state registration rules come from legal guides and a legal handbook rather than the statutes themselves. The most recent opened source on the state of reform is the February 2026 commentary. This is a Path A output (research-based definition), so observation_refs is empty and provenance_mode: press-derived.

People affected

Estimated range Not derivable

The reason and what is missing are listed under “What is missing” below