Greater protections for notifiers

In April 2025, a number of amendments to the National Law were passed, including an amendment that aims to better protect notifiers from reprisals, harm, threats, intimidation, harassment or coercion. Australian health ministers agreed to amend the National Law to strengthen how people are protected when they decide to make a notification.

The explanatory notes for the bill that introduced the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2025 (Qld) (the 2025 Amendment Act) recognised:

The only protection available to notifiers who raise concerns in good faith under the National Law is protection from civil, criminal, or administrative liability. In effect, notifiers are not currently protected from reprisals, harm, threats, intimidation, harassment, or coercion. 

While some jurisdictions do provide for some of these protections in their own health complaints legislation, in circumstances where the National Law imposes a legal obligation for some notifiers to make a notification or provide information to the regulators, the current protections are inadequate or inconsistently applied. 

The Ombudsman previously recommended this amendment in her Review of Confidentiality Safeguards for People Making Notifications about Health Practitioners. For context, in late 2018 Ahpra requested that the Ombudsman and Commissioner conduct this review after a general practitioner was convicted for the attempted murder of a pharmacist. The pharmacist had made a notification to Ahpra about the general practitioner’s prescribing practices, and it is thought that the notification was the motive for the crime. The Ombudsman and Commissioner’s review recognised that while acts of violence against notifiers are rare, this experience threw a necessary spotlight on whether Ahpra’s handling of notifications adequately safeguards the confidentiality of notifiers.

Broadly speaking, the Ombudsman and Commissioner’s review found that Ahpra’s approach offered reasonable safeguards for notifiers. In particular, the review concluded that Ahpra’s acceptance of confidential and anonymous notifications serves an important purpose. However, the Ombudsman and Commissioner also identified that the way notifications are handled could be improved to better safeguard the confidentiality of notifiers. One of the areas the review considered in more depth was how Ahpra should respond to practitioners who harm, threaten, intimidate, harass or coerce notifiers. As a result, the Ombudsman and Commissioner recommended that Ahpra:

• develops guidance for staff about how to deal with information that suggests a practitioner has sought to harm, threaten, intimidate, harass or coerce a notifier
• seeks an amendment to the National Law to make it an offence for a registered health practitioner to harm, threaten, intimidate, harass or coerce a notifier.

The Ombudsman and Commissioner welcomed this amendment to the National Law in 2025. It is vitally important that people can raise concerns with Ahpra without fearing retribution.

Although this legislation has been passed, its commencement date will be set by proclamation.

Our office will monitor the implementation of these legislative amendments.