AHPRA’s CEO made an oblique reference to people who were aware of ‘a series of failures and missteps across the wider health system’ but chose not to act during a recent conference address.
Health practitioner regulator chief Justin Untersteiner has flagged major changes coming to AHPRA, warning that the next few years would likely bring “unpredictable and unintended” consequences.
Speaking at the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia National Conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, Mr Untersteiner said it was time to “convert input and options into actions”.
His address came just a week after AHPRA released a five-year plan outlining its high-level strategic direction through to 2031.
Before launching into a summary of the plan, Mr Untersteiner made the caveat that he doesn’t have a crystal ball and that AHPRA would always prioritise its status as a listening and learning organisation.
“To set the scene, we know without question that the next few years will bring uncertainty,” he said.
“Consequences of rapid change can be unpredictable and unintended – solving one set of problems and creating another. That’s the nature of the era we live in.”
He also noted that AHPRA closed the highest number of notifications in the record of the scheme in 2025, taking the number of open and old notifications down to the second-lowest point in six years.
Despite this seeming progress, the regulator also recently started an end-to-end review of its notification system to ensure it was taking what Mr Untersteiner called “a human-centric approach”.
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Part of this was ensuring that there was little room for manipulation or weaponisation of the scheme, he said.
The CEO then made a slightly obscure reference to ongoing “scrutiny and criticism” of the scheme and a “recent media focus on practitioner behaviour and our processes”.
While Mr Untersteiner did not explicitly mention it, AHPRA was recently subject to criticism for its seeming failure to act on patient complains about former gynaecologist Dr Simon Gordon.
“Of course, I can’t discuss specific allegations or investigations, but I can say, after talking with leaders across the health sector, we are all deeply concerned about the experiences and events brought forward and united in our resolve to improve,” Mr Untersteiner said.
“In a complex and interconnected system, such issues can be concealed and cumulative – a series of failures and missteps across the wider health system – surfacing in governance, risk management and decision-making processes.
“As we look deeper, what’s become evident is that some knew of the seriousness of the situation, but chose not to speak up.”
“In my short time as CEO of AHPRA, I have seen too many instances of this.”
