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In June, several Board colleagues and I attended Occupational Therapy Australia’s 31st National Conference in my hometown of Adelaide. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Collaborate and Connect’ and it had over 1,400 delegates. The passion and commitment to evidence-informed practice of the profession was fantastic to see in action. Read more about the Board’s conference presentations below.
Board members who attended reflected that many of the presentations were aligned with strengthening practice in priority areas for the Board. These included decolonising occupational therapy practice, workforce pressures and the prevalence of burnout, and the safe use of artificial intelligence, to a name a few.
This edition also includes information on your new Ahpra portal to manage all aspects of your registration and setting up multifactor authentication for the next renewal period. We encourage you to log into the new Ahpra portal in advance to ensure you are set up to renew by 30 November this year.
Rebecca Singh Chair, Occupational Therapy Board of Australia
When it comes time to renew, things will look different this year. Ahpra has a new online portal with multifactor authentication (MFA) to manage all aspects of your registration.
Multifactor authentication is an extra layer of security used to protect your data.
Before you renew, you will need to link an authenticator app to your portal. This app generates a one-time 6-digit code and is more secure than sending the code by SMS. Every time you log in, you’ll enter:
If you already know your username and password, you can log in now and link MFA. If you’re not sure what your username is, you can wait. We send an email with your username before you need to renew.
If you share your email account with someone else, such as your partner, or use a group email such as ‘[email protected]’ then you will need to change it to an email that is unique to you when you first log in. There’s information available on the Ahpra portal help centre on how to do this.
Here is where you can find more help about logging in to your portal and linking MFA:
If you get stuck, try the troubleshooting tips, or use the portal help centre chatbot. You can also contact Ahpra’s Customer Service team.
Practitioners taking parental leave can have money back in their pockets, as Ahpra’s parental leave fee relief policy is now in effect.
A 30 per cent rebate on annual renewal fees is available for health practitioners who take parental leave and certain other forms of leave.
‘We have listened to concerns and understand the cost-of-living pressures that practitioners who are parents, are pregnant, or have disability or carer responsibilities can face,’ Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner said.
‘Today is an important step in our ongoing process of making registration fee arrangements fairer and more flexible.’
The rebate applies to practitioners who take leave for at least six continuous months on the grounds of a protected attribute, such as parental leave and certain other forms of leave such as disability and carer’s leave.
A practitioner can claim the rebate at the next renewal after the six-month period of leave ends. It is available for future renewals, noting that the timing of annual renewals will vary.
Work has also started to improve processes when transitioning between practising and non-practising registration, as the annual cost for this has now been capped.
A wider review is currently looking at how a pro rata approach to fees can be implemented. It is expected to report by November 2025 with recommendations aimed at coming into effect by 1 July 2026.
Visit the Fee relief for parental and other types of leave webpage for more information and to read the full policy.
Chair Rebecca Singh reports …
The Board hosted a breakfast at the conference to share with attendees the current issues in the regulation of occupational therapists. In my presentation, I spoke about discrimination, racism and intolerance in healthcare and the role every practitioner has in eliminating this from our healthcare system.
I shared the work of National Boards relating to the public health issue that is family, domestic and sexual violence and the joint position statement we issued in November last year. I also spoke about proactive regulation, social media guidance, workforce retention and preventing burnout, and supervision, mentoring and peer networking.
I provided a Board update and, in alignment with the conference theme, included the Board’s overview of the roles and responsibilities of occupational therapy stakeholders in Australia that are relevant to registered occupational therapists and students. You can find this helpful resource on our website.
Here’s to the ongoing collaboration and strong connections that keep our profession moving forward.
Rebecca Singh, Chair, Occupational Therapy Board of Australia presenting at Occupational Therapy Australia’s 31st National Conference.
Rebecca spoke to the theme of the conference, ‘Collaborate and Connect’.
Ahpra welcomed the release of the Independent review of complexity in the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (Dawson review) second consultation paper and thanked the reviewer, Ms Sue Dawson, and her team for their comprehensive work.
Ahpra supports in principle the review’s recommendations, many of which are in lockstep with Ahpra’s current reform agenda.
The reforms centre around:
Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner said the review presents an exciting opportunity for the next chapter in regulation.
‘The National Scheme is facing challenges it has not previously encountered,’ he said.
‘The time is right to take the National Scheme forward to meet the evolving needs of contemporary regulation. I look forward to working with stakeholders to bring the recommendations of the review to life.’
Read the full media release.
Ahpra issued its first ever public statement under new laws to protect the public. The statement, released in June, relates to suspended West Australian practitioner Peter Terzi, also known as Peter Taylor, who Ahpra believes poses a serious risk to persons because of his conduct.
Peter Terzi/Taylor, who held dual registration as a dentist and a nurse, has been suspended from practising in both professions since 26 February this year. He remains under investigation and Ahpra believes he may be continuing to present himself as a registered dentist or nurse while he is suspended and unregistered.
Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner said the power to issue a warning to the general public came into force two years ago, but this is the first time these powers have been used.
‘We take the matter of issuing public statements very seriously and will only ever issue such statements in exceptional circumstances where the public needs to be informed from a safety perspective,’ he said.
‘The threshold for issuing a public statement is set at a high level. The decision to issue a public statement may only be made when Ahpra or a National Board form a reasonable belief that a practitioner or person poses a serious risk to the public.
‘Issuing this statement today means we can warn the public while we continue to take steps to assess and investigate matters that could raise a serious risk to the public.’
Read the statement in full on the Ahpra website.
Ahpra's CEO, Justin Untersteiner, gave a speech to attendees of the National Scheme Combined Meeting on 29 May 2025. The meeting is a two-day event that brings Ahpra staff, board and committee members and external stakeholders together to collaborate, listen and learn about the latest innovations and issues in health regulation. His speech is published on the Ahpra website.
On 23 June he gave a speech to the Australian Medical Association's Colleges, Associations and Societies (CAS) meeting held in Canberra. Mr Untersteiner spoke about Ahpra’s notifications system, workforce and the Dawson review. You can read his speech in full on the Ahpra website.
A Newcastle woman who claimed to be a registered psychologist on five separate occasions was convicted in the Newcastle Local Court in June.
Using the name Christin Lawrence, she was alleged to have claimed to be registered as a psychologist on five occasions, including providing a fake registration certificate and a fake Ahpra registration number to a professional membership body and a university.
She was also alleged to have described herself as a psychologist in a range of ways, including the email address she used and in a professional profile created on the patient booking platform HotDoc.
There is no evidence to indicate Ms Knight provided any psychological services to members of the public.
Read the story in full on the Ahpra website.
Ahpra and the National Boards have published guidance on the prescribing of medicinal cannabis after concerning reports of patients presenting to emergency departments with medicinal cannabis-induced psychosis.
The guidance reminds prescribers that medicinal cannabis should be treated as a medicine and to be as careful and diligent when prescribing medicinal cannabis as they are when prescribing other drugs of dependence.
‘We don’t prescribe opioids to every patient who asks for them, and medicinal cannabis is no different. Patient demand is no indicator of clinical need,’ said Medical Board of Australia Chair, Dr Susan O’Dwyer.
The guidance addresses concerns that profits are being prioritised over patient safety and aims to support practitioners to provide safe care, particularly for those patients at most risk of harm.
Adjunct Professor Veronica Casey AM, Chair of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, urges nurse practitioners within the industry to combine this guidance with their professional practice framework when conducting assessments.
‘Nurses and other registered practitioners must provide holistic care in all areas of their practice. They must take their professional responsibilities with them no matter where they work,’ said Adjunct Professor Casey.
Safe prescribing of medicinal cannabis includes assessing patients thoroughly, formulating and implementing a management plan, facilitating coordination and continuity of care, maintaining medical records, recommending treatments only where there is an identified therapeutic need, ensuring medicinal cannabis is never a first line treatment, and developing an exit strategy from the beginning.
You can read the full media release and the guidance on the Ahpra website.
Australians undergoing cosmetic procedures such as anti-wrinkle injections and fillers will have greater protections under sweeping guidelines being introduced across the booming billion-dollar industry.
Ahpra and the National Boards have published advance copies of the Guidelines for practitioners who perform non-surgical cosmetic procedures and the Guidelines for practitioners who advertise higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures, which will strengthen safeguards across the industry when they come into effect on 2 September 2025.
The new protections highlight that many practitioners need more than just the foundational qualifications included in their initial training before they can safely perform non-surgical procedures like cosmetic injections. Further training or education will be necessary for those practitioners wanting to expand their scope of practice.
While cosmetic procedures remain out of scope for many practitioners, the guidelines will now apply to all regulated professions, futureproofing those that may join the lucrative cosmetic industry.
Learn more about the new cosmetic procedure practice and advertising guidelines.
New resources are now available to help practitioners understand and adapt to changes to the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, which will come into effect over the next 12 months.
Information on the changes, how they will be implemented and what they mean for practitioners and the public is available in the full information guide, while the two-page short guide provides a high level snapshot of the changes.
Both guides are available on the National Law amendments page on the Ahpra website which includes links to related topics and will be updated as our implementation activities progress.
The changes to the National Law were passed earlier this year, focusing on:
