National Scheme’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy 2020-2025
As National Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Strategy Unit at Ahpra, I led the development and implementation of Australia's first national cultural safety strategy across sixteen health professions - a world-first for a health practitioner regulation agency.
The Strategy was deliberately structured around enforceable obligations rather than aspirational language.
Key outcomes include:
the standardisation of a self-determined definition of cultural safety across all sixteen regulated health professions;
amendment of the National Law in 2022 to enshrine culturally safe practice free from racism for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples - the first time the term “racism” had been used in healthcare legislation since federation;
embedding of cultural safety obligations within health profession codes of conduct, registration standards, and accreditation requirements;
and mandatory cultural safety training across Ahpra, national boards, and committee members.
The 2023 landmark Medical Board of Australia tribunal decision disqualifying a medical practitioner for anti-Indigenous racism was a direct consequence of that regulatory architecture - accountability made real through legislation and licensing rather than aspiration.
