Regulating the professions: What could possibly go wrong?

While competition regulators are wary of the potential for some occupational and professional licensing schemes to erect excessive barriers against entry, Australia has a lengthy history of regulation in this area as a critical means to protect consumers. Requiring qualifications to call oneself a surgeon, surveyor, chaplain, lawyer or school master turns out to date back to the very earliest days of the colonies, followed over the decades by numerous other groups.Registration, licensing and accreditation schemes are a common feature of today’s regulatory frameworks but the regulatory practices of assessing applications, auditing and discipline can be both complex and contested. How dizzyingly fast the co/de/regulation pendulum has been swinging of late!  Whether it be the array of building and construction professionals under fierce scrutiny because of cladding and other failures in high-rise apartments, or the COVID 19-driven pressures on AHPRA for fast-tracking registration of health professionals, or the ongoing conversation about balancing natural justice for professionals with protecting consumers, there couldn’t be a better time for this important discussion. 

• Facilitator: Bronwyn Weir (Bronwyn Weir presentation slides)
• Speaker 1: Roxane Marcelle-Shaw
• Speaker 2: Jane Eldridge