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09 Sep 2025
Ahpra's CEO, Justin Untersteiner, delivered the following speech on Tuesday 9 September 2025 to the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme annual accreditation meeting held in Melbourne.
This morning I’d like to acknowledge that we’re meeting on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung Peoples of the Eastern Kulin. I recognise the traditional owners and their continuing connection to country, cultures and communities.
I pay my respects to Elders past and present. I also welcome all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today.
Welcome everyone. Looking around, I see a number of faces I’ve had the opportunity to meet already – and I look forward to talking with many more of you over the course of today.
If our paths haven’t yet crossed, I’m Justin. I’m a dedicated dad and husband; I’m a coach and mentor; I’m also a motorbike rider, an avid Canberra Raiders fan (if you’ve met me, you’ll already know this!); and most recently, I’m the new CEO of Ahpra.
All those things delight and inspire me – and none are without challenge.
I’m deeply aware of the critical role Ahpra plays in safeguarding the health and wellbeing of our communities – and the expectation that comes with that. Not just on me as CEO, but on all facets of our multidimensional health system.
What I bring, is more than 20 years’ experience in regulation and compliance, helping to uphold the standards by which professionals define themselves, and consumers everywhere, rely on. The standards that are your day-to-day work. I also bring authentic leadership, complete commitment to the cause, and an unwavering focus on people and partnerships.
This too, is what I bring to stewardship.
Stewardship is about caring for something we’ve been trusted to look after. Being a good steward means accepting responsibility for that care and working to ensure the long-term integrity and sustainability of what has been entrusted to us.
Stewardship is a value, a mindset and a practice.
Today I’m going to talk a bit about my first few months at Ahpra, what I’m hearing and seeing, and how we’re putting stewardship into action.
History tells us that at certain points, under a unique set of circumstances, a window of opportunity opens.
I’m looking forward to hearing Tamara speak shortly on emerging megatrends for health – so I won’t steal her thunder–but undoubtedly, the winds of change are blowing.
We have a confluence of events and trends across all spheres: political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental – with multiple intersections and influences for health systems and health workforce.
To point to a few of the most obvious ones:
Against this backdrop, we’re also seeing dramatic change in the Australian health system – not least of all, the ongoing issues of supply and demand, and questions around patient access and affordability.
We’re also seeing new technologies enabling new health business models, which call for a shift in our regulatory posture and practices. If we are to protect public safety, we must be proactive, able to identify emerging risks and take action to address them.
Public safety is, and must remain, our number one priority.
So, for Ahpra and our partners, it’s an opportune time for a new CEO. The window is open. And as stewards of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme, we can’t afford to stand idle or continue to look in the rear view mirror.
People’s needs are changing and so are their expectations. What got us here, won’t get us there.
Despite my enthusiasm for change, I can’t charge blindly ahead on a one-man mission.
I’ve dedicated the majority of my time over the past four months, talking to all manner of stakeholders across the country, at all levels, in many communities and professions.
The feedback is resounding – we have work to do, to rebuild trust and confidence in Ahpra. Themes that I am hearing include:
be timely and efficient
be transparent with strong and clear communication
demonstrate high levels of procedural fairness
and it must be empathetic and accessible.
To make progress, these goals must be underpinned by improved stakeholder partnerships and engagement, data access and transparency, and efficient tech-enabled systems and workflows.
And these aren’t just our ideas, they’re being reinforced by extensive consultation on our National Scheme Strategy. So far, we’ve run over 30 sessions with 100s (maybe 1,000s) of participants, to ensure we focus on what matters most. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed.
Of course, it’s not enough to simply identify the shortfalls and opportunities – we must take action.
We’re now drafting the new National Scheme Strategy with the aim of finalising it around October.
The Strategy will inform our Corporate Plan – giving visibility to what we’ll prioritise in the short-medium term and keeping us accountable to deliver on the Strategy.
In the meantime, we’ve restructured Ahpra to recalibrate our focus, introducing new directorates for:
And to demonstrate proactive regulation, we’re making our presence known in areas like prescribing of medicinal cannabis and cosmetic procedures to warn the public, protect professional standards and deter unscrupulous practices.
It goes without saying that the strength of our health workforce is paramount to the effectiveness of our health system.
At 30 June, Australia had approximately 960,000 registered health practitioners – just shy of 1 million. This is an increase of more than 4% since last year, and there are now 3.5 practitioners for every 100 Australians.
Nevertheless, there continues to be real workforce challenges in the health sector here in Australia – as there are in many jurisdictions around the world. Patients with little access to Australia’s otherwise well-regarded health system, or who are being served by tireless practitioners who deserve more support.
This is not an issue solely for Ahpra to solve, however we play a critical leadership role in enabling workforce solutions through standards, registration and accreditation.
We are on track to implement the Kruk Review recommendations, and, following policy decisions made by governments, we are now seeing skilled overseas practitioners enter the Australian system via our new expedited pathway for Specialist International Medical Graduates (SIMGs).
To date:
We’ve also introduced expedited pathways for nurses with similar work underway for several other professions. We simplified English language requirements while maintaining public safety, expanding the list of recognised English-speaking countries from seven to 30 nations and territories.
We reached a milestone last year, with over 1,000 registered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners for the first time. Across the entire registered health practitioner workforce, and all 16 professions, 1.2% are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. This is still well short of where we want to be, and there is much work to do to meet our goal of eliminating racism from the healthcare system.
We launched our new operating system in March, which–though not without some teething issues– includes a portal for faster, more secure online applications. This is the biggest IT system upgrade Ahpra has made since it began and will be crucial for ensuring that our regulatory work can continue to adapt and grow with our health workforce.
And we’re doing what we can to take the friction out of the renewal process.
To prepare for upcoming renewals, we’re encouraging practitioners to set up a portal and link a multi-factor authenticator app before their renewals open. The initiative is tracking well:
Medical renewals have now commenced. More than 56,000 medical practitioners have now renewed their registration, 41.9% of eligible practitioners – a significant improvement on the same time last year.
We’re making sure that when practitioners need extra support, it is available and timely. At peak, our call centre is taking around 1,200 calls per day and still managing to keep wait times under one minute.
And we recently deployed an SMS and Auto Dialler system to provide extra outbound, proactive, one-to-one support to doctors with the renewal process. Practitioners can elect to opt out or connect with our customer service team who can step through the portal set up process (immediately or at a future time that suits them). So far 844 doctors have used the service to get ready for renewal.
In tandem with these initiatives, we are thrilled to be advancing a suite of data and analytics projects designed to revolutionise how the Commonwealth and States and Territories access and interpret health workforce information. These projects will unlock unprecedented visibility into workforce trends, enabling real-time, evidence-based decision-making and smarter planning for the future. By harnessing the power of modern analytics and digital platforms, we're not just sharing data - we're equipping our partners with the insights needed to drive innovation, respond to emerging needs, and ultimately strengthen health services nationwide.
These are solid steps forward, showing some good results, but much more needs to be done and we must continue to work together with governments, colleges, accreditation bodies and other partners, to address challenges - existing and emerging–and seize opportunities to do things better.
To support this, I’m pleased to be attending Health Workforce Taskforce meetings on an ongoing basis. Alongside our contributions to the Health Chief Executives’ Forum (HCEF) and Health Ministers Meetings (HMM), I’m keen to help drive actions to address priority workforce challenges across the health sector.
The accreditation process is fundamental to the Scheme. We may need to remind ourselves that it’s the ‘A’ in NRAS. Constant use of a well-known acronym can disguise the essence.
On behalf of the Australian public, and in response to their experiences, governments are looking closely at the pressure points across the workforce system. How do we:
How will we respond?
It’s not just a matter of meeting public demand; it’s also the key to workforce sustainability.
To optimise the workforce, we have to join the dots between Ahpra, boards, accreditors, and education providers. These roles in the system are explicitly linked under the National Law. Our success (or otherwise) is inextricable.
While Ahpra is experiencing low levels of trust and confidence, so is the ‘A’ in NRAS.
In my view and based on what I’m hearing from those witnessing and interacting with the accreditation system, this is largely attributable to a sense of confusion, lack of transparency and an expectation gap.
But I’m not confident we’re actively listening or accepting the feedback. We’re protecting and defending a model that has undeniable strengths–but also has huge potential for reform. We should be asking ourselves:
I acknowledge these are big challenges in a complex operating environment–but they’re not insurmountable.
And today, I’m certainly not professing to know the answers.
I come to you, as fellow stewards of the health system, to pose the question: ‘how might we?’
How might we…
We need to accelerate accreditation reform. As I said earlier, relying on what’s served to this point, won’t be enough get us where we need to be.
As stewards of the health system, we must all accept responsibility for the long-term integrity and sustainability of what has been entrusted to us. The nature of our roles–distinct but connected–obligates us to support a health workforce that can support Australia.
Over the course of today–and in your every day, I ask you to embody stewardship, and to think boldly about what more we can be doing to build trust and confidence and set ourselves up for shared success.
As Ahpra’s CEO, in lockstep with the Boards, I look forward to working with you and playing a key part in this journey.
