June 2025

Issue 26 - June 2025

From the Chair
Board news
Registration news
Cultural safety series
What’s new?
Keep in touch with the Board

From the Chair

Image of Stuart Aamodt

Welcome to the June edition of the Optometry Board of Australia’s newsletter.

You can read the about the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anti-Racism Policy, business practices that comply with the shared Code of conduct and the joint statement issued by regulators that family violence is unacceptable. There is also important information on the new Ahpra portal for practitioners.

Keep your eye on the Board’s website and communications to stay up to date with our projects and progress.

Stuart Aamodt
Chair, Optometry Board of Australia

Board news

Meet your Board: practitioner member Terence Wong

Image of a man Terence Wong is a therapeutically endorsed optometrist based in New South Wales who joined the Board in March 2024. Terence aims to combine his diverse background and technical acumen to offer a holistic perspective within the National Scheme.

His overarching goal is to serve the public and to improve social wellbeing at large.

Here’s a bit from Terence on how and why he ended up on the Board

I graduated from Queensland University of Technology in 2016 and began my career in regional QLD. Since then, I have practised in several corporate and independent practices across QLD and NSW.

Being involved with the Board enables me to contribute to the community in a unique way. My experience as an optometrist in private practice and my training in the law allow me to provide a practical and pragmatic perspective to the Board.

Balancing between competing professional commitments can be difficult at times, but I believe the rewarding and effective work of the Board really drives us to go the extra mile.

Comings and goings on the Board

Four Board members finished their terms in December last year. We extend our thanks for their valuable contributions. They are Carla Abbott, practitioner member from Victoria, Anthony Evans and Rosemary Knight, both community members and Martin Robinson, practitioner member from Tasmania. We would also like to thank Sharon Bentley, practitioner member from Queensland, for her dedication to the work of the Board as we bid her farewell in May.

We’re pleased to welcome Ingrid Diep, practitioner member from the Northern Territory and Amanda Mead, community member. Amanda and Ingrid were appointed to the Board in December 2024.

Good optometry practice

The Chair of the Optometry Board of Australia says ‘Optometrists, in providing professional eye care, are expected to make clinical decisions that are not influenced by financial gain or incentives.’

The shared Code of conduct (the code) for optometrists provides guidance on the Board’s expectations around good practice, professional behaviour and conduct for optometrists.

Section 1.2 (f) of the code says that ‘Good practice includes that you provide treatment options that are based on the best available information and are not influenced by financial gain or incentives.’

Your choice of assessments and treatments should be based on the best available evidence, patient centred practice and your clinical judgement and not be influenced by employer key performance indicators (KPIs).

Section 8.10 (i) specifies that ‘Good practice includes if you employ other registered health practitioners, do not set performance targets, quotas or engage in business practices that are inconsistent with this code, and/or may compromise patient safety.’

Optometrists as employers and managers have a responsibility to implement business practices consistent with the code.

For additional resources on applying the code in practice, just visit the Resources to help health practitioners section of the Ahpra website.

National Scheme Combined Meeting

This year’s National Scheme Combined Meeting brought together 15 National Boards, accreditation authorities and regulatory stakeholders. The Optometry Board met up with representatives from the Optometrist and Dispensing Opticians Board of New Zealand, Optometry Council of New South Wales and the Optometry Council of Australia and New Zealand.

The conference focused on eliminating racism in healthcare, public safety as a central priority, AI in healthcare innovation, enhancing accreditation processes and building strong, collaborative partnerships across the sector.

Above: Optometry Board members, members of the Board’s Registration and Notifications Committee and representatives from the Optometry Council of Australia and New Zealand (ODOB), the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board of New Zealand (OCANZ) and the Optometry Council of New South Wales.

Registration news

New Ahpra portal

Ahpra recently launched a new online portal, where you can access new digital smart forms for new applications and renewal of registration.

Your Ahpra portal will be where you can manage your registration. You can download your registration certificate, renew your registration, and apply to change your registration type.

Next time you log in, the experience will be a bit different. We’ve introduced multifactor authentication (also called two-step verification) for additional account security. There is also a new proof of identity process. Your identity will be verified by a third party using biometric verification.

You don’t need to do anything until it’s time for you to apply for or renew your registration. Look out for the usual renewal reminders for this and we’ll explain how to set up your account.

Midyear graduate needing to apply for registration? Need to access your Ahpra portal now? Go to our Ahpra Portal help centre.

Help protect your data

Help protect your data by being alert to scammers and only logging in to the Ahpra portal direct from the Ahpra website: www.ahpra.gov.au.

We will only ask you to log in to your Ahpra portal when you’re due to apply for or renew your registration.

Need a receipt or tax invoice from Ahpra? Here’s what you need to know

Receipts or tax invoices for payments made in the 2024–25 financial year will be emailed to you directly – they won’t be available in the Ahpra portal.

Any payments made after 18 March 2025

You’ll receive your receipt or tax invoice shortly after your payment via email. Be sure to check both your inbox and spam/junk folder.

If you paid between 1 July 2024 and 18 March 2025

We’ll email your receipt or tax invoice from mid-June 2025. Be sure to check both your inbox and spam/junk folder.

If you haven’t received it by mid-July, please submit an online enquiry, and let us know you need a receipt or tax invoice for the 2024–25 financial year.

Need a receipt or tax invoice for a previous year?

For payments made before July 2024, please submit an online enquiry and specify which financial year(s) you need. We’ll email the relevant documents once we receive your request.

Latest workforce data released

The Board’s quarterly registration data to 31 March 2025 has been released. At this date, there were 7,333 registered optometrists. Non-practising optometrists made up 228 of that number, plus 26 optometrists with limited registration.

There are 5,605 optometrists with scheduled medicines endorsement, 79.2 per cent of the profession.

There are 13 optometrists who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, or 0.2 per cent of the profession.

For more details, including registration data by principal place of practice, age and gender, visit our Statistics page.

Cultural safety series

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anti-Racism Policy

Ahpra and the National Scheme have announced their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anti-Racism policy, informed by extensive consultation and the expertise of Professor Yin Paradies, a leading scholar in racism and cultural safety. This policy applies to all Ahpra staff, board, committee and panel members in the National Scheme.

This policy has been developed by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples to create a safe, valued, and respectful environment within Ahpra and the National Boards. It forms a critical step in enacting Ahpra and the National Scheme’s policy and legislative commitments to eliminating racism.

Racism towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples is persistent, harmful, and structurally embedded. This policy acknowledges those realities and provides clear mechanisms for preventing, addressing, and eliminating racism within Ahpra, the National Boards and committees. It establishes stronger reporting pathways and introduces the Racism-related Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-only Special Issues Committee (RATSISIC) to ensure culturally informed responses to racism.

The policy reflects the hard work and leadership of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anti-Racism Policy Working Group, chaired by Professor Carmen Parter, whose contributions were vital to its development.

You can also find a copy of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anti-Racism Policy on the Ahpra website. You'll find this under 'Ahpra, Ahpra Board and National Boards information', click on the Ahpra tab.

Meeting of the Optometry Regulatory Reference Group

Regulators, educators, professional associations and program accreditors from Australia and New Zealand came together on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation to meet at the Optometry Regulatory Reference Group (ORRG) in March. The ORRG is a forum for the Board and optometry stakeholders to discuss issues relevant to the regulation of the profession.

In 2025, these included discussions on regulatory policy updates, the eye health workforce and culturally safe eye care actions. We were particularly pleased to have the First Nations’ Eye Health Alliance (FNEHA) present to us about their organisation, work and priority areas for action. FNEHA is the principal voice and eye care peak body, working nationally for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander eye care.

Jaki Adams, FNEHA Co-Chair, challenged us all on ‘allyship accountability’ and the meaning of allyship in action.

‘Allyship is respecting self-determination, supporting, collaborating, elevating and amplifying First Nations voices. This is more important than ever, as we work to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander eye health and vision care in Australia,’ Board Chair Stuart Aamodt said.

Above: The ORRG meeting in March.

First Nations health conferences

In December 2024, practitioner Board member Renee Slunjski attended the 2024 National Indigenous Allied Health Australia (IAHA) conference, held on Kaurna Land. Renee was joined by the Board’s Policy and Education Committee member, Sara Carrison, a Ngarrindjeri woman and optometrist.

The conference celebrated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners and emerging leaders, as well as cultural knowledge, professional expertise and intergenerational empowerment.

Among the presenters, Professor Nicola Anstice and Renata Watene from the Optometry Council of Australia and New Zealand Indigenous Strategy Taskforce shared their research, and how to integrate cultural competence and cultural safety into learning outcomes.

Thank you to Donna Murray and the IAHA Team for hosting the insightful conference.

Sara is also a Board member of the First Nations Eye Health Alliance (FNEHA) and attended the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Eye Health Conference on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar peoples in Perth in May.

The conference theme Seeing our way echoed the evolution of this annual conference. With FNEHA as the convenors of the 2025 event, it was the first run completely under Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership. Self-determination was in the spotlight over the three days of the conference. Keynote speakers delivered sessions on community resilience and cultural strength, human rights and measuring the progress on Closing the Gap. Important discussions were continued, around the critical need for culturally safe eye health practitioners and accomplices to walk beside First Nations people to drive action to achieve equitable eye health.

What’s new?

Increased protection for the public

Patients are being given greater insight into disciplinary action against health practitioners, under new measures that will see proven instances of sexual misconduct permanently published on their public register record.

The amendments will also provide increased protections for people who make complaints about health practitioners, including new measures making it an offence for practitioners to enter into non-disclosure agreements that prevent complaints being made to health regulators.

Ahpra said the new measures were a milestone in patient protection.

‘Everybody has the right to expect their practitioner to be safe and fit to practise, and these reforms strengthen that right,’ Ms Kim Ayscough (Acting CEO at the time) said.

‘We support these changes, which align with the range of reforms that Ahpra and the National Boards are progressing as part of our actions to improve public safety involving sexual misconduct in healthcare.’

Read about the key changes to the National Law.

Health practitioner regulators united: family violence is unacceptable

Australia’s health practitioner regulators are united in their view that family violence is unacceptable.

For the first time ever, these regulators issued a joint statement reminding practitioners of the critical contribution they can make in Australia’s response to tackling family violence.

The statement recognises the role of regulators in the collective effort to end family violence by supporting victim-survivors, setting clear expectations of health practitioners, taking regulatory action as appropriate and condemning all forms of family violence.

Health practitioners are often the first point of contact for victim-survivors, so play an essential role in the early detection, support, referral, and delivery of specialised treatment to those experiencing family violence.

Health practitioners are also reminded that their own conduct, as well as that of their colleagues, must reflect the trust and confidence the public have in them for safe and effective healthcare. Regulators work to ensure health practitioners are safe, ethical, and professional for the protection of the public.

Family violence is a serious crime and a violation of human rights. It is a gross departure from the ethical standards of behaviour expected of health practitioners. Health practitioners who are perpetrators of family violence could face suspension, cancellation, the imposition of conditions, or refusal of registration.

As regulators we are committed to minimising the risk of adding to victim-survivors’ trauma or exposing them to further risk of harm. We seek to respond to victim-survivors’ complaints about health practitioners in a trauma-informed way. This means prioritising the safety and dignity of victim-survivors and respectfully and sensitively supporting them through the health complaint management process.

We encourage any person aware of a health practitioner perpetrating family violence to provide information to the police and appropriate regulatory body. A list of health practitioner regulator contact details, as well as police, family violence information and support services, is included in the joint position statement.

Read the media release.

More flexible English language pathways for practitioners registering in Australia

Ahpra and the National Boards (except for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practice Board) have published the new Registration standard: English language skills (the ELS standard) which sees several changes to simplify English language requirements while maintaining public safety.

Under the revised standard, the list of recognised English-speaking countries has been expanded to 30 nations and territories, cutting red tape for qualified practitioners.

The updated ELS standards also have changes to the current English language test pathway including:

reducing the writing component score for the approved English language tests from IELTS 7 to 6.5 (or equivalent) in all professions
adding the Cambridge English Language Skills test
extending timeframes for accepting a combined result from two tests from six months to 12 months, and
widening the grounds for extending the validity of English language test results to include continuously working in appropriate roles in recognised countries.

Ahpra's new CEO

Ahpra has appointed Justin Untersteiner as Chief Executive Officer. Justin joined Ahpra in April and brings over 20 years’ experience in regulation and compliance, most recently as Chief Operating Officer at the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).

Ahpra Board Chair Gill Callister PSM said that Justin was an impressive leader who stood out in a field of domestic and international candidates.

‘Justin’s experience in leading change and bringing new approaches, combined with his knowledge of regulation and compliance, made him a standout candidate,’ she said. ‘Justin’s appointment marks an exciting new chapter for Ahpra, and the Board is looking forward to working with him to build the next phase of Australia’s health regulation system.’

Justin succeeds Martin Fletcher who completed his final term as CEO in December 2024.

Learn more about Ahpra’s new CEO.

Keep in touch with the Board

Visit the Board website for registration standards, codes, guidelines and FAQs.
Lodge an online enquiry form.
For registration enquiries, call 1300 419 495 (from within Australia) or +61 3 9125 3010 (for overseas callers).
Address mail correspondence to: Stuart Aamodt, Chair, Optometry Board of Australia, GPO Box 9958, Melbourne, VIC 3001.