Remote witnessing in Australia: where video link works and where it doesn’t

Before 2020, witnessing meant physical presence everywhere in Australia. The emergency measures introduced that year permitted witnessing by audio-visual link, and what happened afterwards diverged sharply. Some jurisdictions made the change permanent. Some let it lapse. Two never authorised it at all.

The result is a patchwork that has not been tidied up since, and the only reliable way through it is to ask the right question first.

The question that decides it

Which law is the document made under? Not where you live, not where the witness is, not where the document will be sent. The law the document is made under.

This trips up almost everyone, and the consequences run both ways. A person in Perth can make a Commonwealth statutory declaration by video link, because the Commonwealth Act permits it and imposes no geographic limitation. A person in Sydney cannot make a Western Australian statutory declaration by video link, because the Western Australian Act requires presence, and their own location is irrelevant to that.

The position, jurisdiction by jurisdiction

Law the document is made under	Witnessing by audio-visual link
Commonwealth	Available. Plus a digital pathway requiring no witness at all
New South Wales	Available, under a permanent statutory regime
Victoria	Available
Queensland	Available
South Australia	Available
Australian Capital Territory	Available
Northern Territory	Available
Western Australia	Not available. The Act requires the declaration to be made in the presence of the witness
Tasmania	Not available. No law authorises it

The Commonwealth: three routes

Commonwealth statutory declarations are the most flexible documents in the country, and since the Statutory Declarations Amendment Act 2023 (Cth) there are three equally valid ways to make one.

1. Paper. Wet ink, witnessed in person by a prescribed person.
2. Electronic. An electronic signature, witnessed over an audio-visual link by a prescribed person.
3. Digital. End to end online through an approved platform, with identity verified by the Australian Government's Digital ID and no witness at all. myGov is at present the only approved platform.

If your document is a Commonwealth statutory declaration and the digital route fits, it is free and you should use it. It does not fit every case — it is limited to Commonwealth declarations, it requires a sufficiently verified Digital ID, and a body that has given you a specific form to complete may not accept it — but where it fits, nothing else is needed.

What the witness must actually do

Remote witnessing is not simply holding a video call and signing afterwards. The statutes prescribe a sequence, and the steps are requirements rather than good practice. New South Wales is the clearest drafting, and the shape is similar elsewhere:

1. Observe the signing in real time. Not a recording, not a photograph of a signed page, not an assurance that it has been signed. The witness watches the pen move.
2. Be reasonably satisfied the document is the same document. The witness must be able to connect what they watched being signed to what they are putting their own name to.
3. Sign the document or a copy of it. Typically a counterpart, or a scanned copy returned by the signatory.
4. Endorse it with a statement specifying the method and stating that the document was witnessed in accordance with the section. No wording is prescribed in NSW; something of this shape does the job:

This document was signed in counterpart and witnessed over audio visual link in accordance with section 14G of the Electronic Transactions Act 2000.

The endorsement is the step most often omitted, and its absence is a defect on the face of the document.

Two traps

Remote witnessing is not electronic signing. These are separate legal questions with separate answers. In New South Wales, section 14G authorises witnessing over a video link; it does not authorise the signatory to sign electronically. Unless another law permits an electronic signature for the particular document, the signature is wet ink and the witness signs a counterpart or a scanned copy. A document signed electronically on the assumption that remote witnessing carried electronic signing with it looks properly executed and is not.

Copies cannot be certified remotely. Certifying a copy requires the certifier to compare it against the original, in their hands. No amount of video resolution substitutes for that, and an audio-visual witnessing provision does not authorise it.

Western Australia and Tasmania

The two states sit outside the regime for different reasons.

In Western Australia, the Oaths, Affidavits and Statutory Declarations Act 2005 (WA) requires the declarant to declare orally in the presence of an authorised witness, and separately provides that the signing need not occur in the witness's presence. The Act therefore distinguishes deliberately between the steps that may happen away from the witness and the step that may not. Nothing has been enacted to permit that oral declaration to be made by audio-visual link.

In Tasmania, the position is a matter of absence rather than prohibition. The Oaths Act 2001 (Tas) has no operative provision requiring presence; the requirement arises from the prescribed form, which the witness completes beneath the words "before me". No Tasmanian law authorises witnessing by audio-visual link.

We have written both positions up in full, including the pandemic instruments and why neither changed the answer, in our note on Western Australia and Tasmania.

If you are in either state, the practical position is this: a document made under your state's law needs a witness in the room with you, and your state's official Justice of the Peace register or signing service is the place to start. A Commonwealth statutory declaration is a different matter and can be dealt with remotely.

Documents that remain outside

Even where remote witnessing is authorised for declarations and affidavits, some documents sit wholly or partly outside it:

• Wills. Execution requirements for wills are governed by succession legislation and are treated more conservatively everywhere.
• Enduring powers of attorney and appointments of enduring guardian. Several jurisdictions impose their own witnessing requirements, sometimes including a prescribed certificate from the witness.
• Land titles instruments. These have their own regime, including verification of identity requirements that are not satisfied by a general witnessing provision.
• Deeds, in several jurisdictions. The rules for deeds are more restrictive than for declarations and should be confirmed for the particular state.

We do not witness documents in these categories, and where one arrives we say so at the outset rather than partway through.

In short

Work out which law your document is made under. If it is Commonwealth law, you have three routes and one of them is free. If it is the law of any state or territory other than Western Australia or Tasmania, video link is available provided the witness does the four things the statute requires and records the method on the document. If it is Western Australian or Tasmanian law, you need somebody in the room.

This note is general information about remote witnessing in Australia, current as at the date shown. It is not legal advice. The regimes differ in detail between jurisdictions and continue to change; confirm the position for your document and the requirements of the body receiving it.