A person with intellectual disability and their supporter look over a document to make a decision

Supported decision making: Disability Royal Commission project report update

11 June 2026

Each year the Australian and state governments release a progress report showing how they have responded to the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission.

CID is reviewing the reports to see what the NSW Government is doing to help people with intellectual disability. It is important that we keep the government accountable.

The Royal Commission made a number of recommendations about substitute decision making and supported decision making.

What are substitute and supported decision making?

Substitute decision making is where someone else – such as the NSW Trustee and Guardian – is appointed to make decisions on behalf of a person with disability.

Supported decision making is where a person with disability is supported to make their own decisions about their lives.

The Royal Commission said that substitute decision making not only limits autonomy but can lead to increased risk of harm.

The Commission said that substitute decision making should be used as a last resort. It said that supported decision making is preferable.

The Commission recommended that states embed supported decision making principles across government.

Progress on supported decision making in NSW

Progress on expanding supported decision making in NSW is very limited. The number of people whose decisions are made by the NSW Trustee and Guardian is at the highest level it has ever been in NSW, and continues to grow strongly.

The Royal Commission made 17 recommendations on supported decision making. However, the NSW Government did not accept any of those recommendations outright, and accepted only 4 in principle.

The NSW Government is lagging behind other states in improving guardianship laws in response to the recommendations made by agencies such as the Australian Law Reform Commission and the NSW Law Reform Commission. Both of these reports speak of the importance of practicing and promoting supported decision making.

On the positive side, we applaud the Government’s action in establishing a working party to advise on changes to the Guardianship Act in response to Royal Commission. The working party was a positive collaboration between government and community.

We call on the Department of Communities and Justice to release the working party’s 2024 report, and the Department’s response on how the working party’s recommendations can contribute to reform of the NSW Guardianship Act.

We welcome the six-month supported decision making onboarding pilot at the NSW Trustee and Guardian. We call on the Attorney General to build on this work, particularly:

To determine the factors that contribute to people with an intellectual, developmental or cognitive disability being appointed the NSW Trustee and Guardian.
To ensure people have access to the supports they want and need to ensure they can make their own decisions.
To ensure that for people who do have NSW Trustee and Guardian appointed, their guardian and financial manager gets to know them, and builds their decision making ability so they no longer need substitute decision making.

CID calls for an immediate amendment to the NSW Guardianship Act to require evidence that options for supported decision making have been exhausted before a Guardianship or Financial Management Order is made by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

We congratulate the Ageing and Disability Commission parliamentary committee for calling an inquiry into supported decision making.

We want the principles of supported decision making to be embedded into the Ageing and Disability Commission Act. This will allow the Commission to advise, educate and promote supported decision making to the whole community, creating a genuine alternative to last resort systems like NSW Trustee and Guardian.