As suicides mount and doctors face increasing persecution, calls for an investigation into Australia’s medical regulator intensify.

Maryanne Demasi, PhD

May 12, 2025

On 3 May 2025, I attended a conference where almost 200 people—doctors, lawyers, policy advisers, politicians, whistleblowers, patients, and grieving families—gathered to confront the damage being inflicted by Australia’s most feared medical regulator.

Under the guise of protecting the public, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has fostered a climate of fear within the medical profession, bullying doctors, driving them to quit, and contributing to a growing number of suicides.

The event, The Misdeeds of AHPRA, was convened in Sydney by surgeon Dr Niro Sivathasan, backed by the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS) and the Australian Doctors’ Federation, under the ‘Accountability Australia’ banner.

For many, it marked the first chance to speak openly about how AHPRA has destroyed careers, upended lives, and torn families apart.

Even so, many doctors were too frightened to attend, fearing retaliation from AHPRA. This spoke volumes about the oppressive atmosphere within Australia’s medical profession, where speaking out can lead to severe consequences.

The growing exodus of doctors, unable to withstand the constant harassment, highlights a profession increasingly defined by fear rather than a commitment to medical care.

A culture of fear

Throughout the day, speaker after speaker revealed the corrosive effect of AHPRA’s unchecked authority. Doctors spoke of practising medicine without clinical freedom to truly benefit their patients – operating instead under the looming shadow of surveillance.

“Doctors are petrified,” one said to me quietly. “We’re no longer making decisions based on our medical judgement. We are busy trying to avoid triggering an investigation.”

Plastic surgeon Dr Peter Callan described living in “terror” of being reported—despite never having been investigated himself.

His fear, he explained, stemmed from watching colleagues punished for what seemed like minor issues or technicalities, despite their best efforts to comply with regulatory directives.

He recounted the case of a colleague who had been instructed to delete certain social media posts to comply with new cosmetic surgery guidelines, which the colleague did.

However, unbeknownst to them, one image remained accessible online because it had been stored, or "cached," on AHPRA’s servers. This image was later cited as evidence of non-compliance, despite the colleague fully adhering to the instructions.

“There was no complaint and – most importantly – no patient was harmed,” said Dr. Callan, horrified by AHPRA’s overreach.

From where I sat in the audience, this was not an isolated case—it was a recurring pattern: doctors penalised for minor infractions, technicalities, or, worse, for exercising independent clinical judgement.

This kind of overreach not only drains time and resources but also shifts the focus from addressing genuine, harmful practices to chasing “low-hanging fruit.”

Lawyer, and former AHPRA investigator, David Gardner, gave a sobering account of what he’d witnessed on the inside.

“There are incredible delays. I’ve seen doctors suspended for four or five years before they even get a hearing,” he said.

After raising concerns about AHPRA’s internal shortcomings, including the weaponisation of the complaints process, Gardner left the agency in early 2019.

Now, he legally represents doctors caught in a regulatory process that is often arbitrary, secretive, and devoid of due process.

During the breaks, my conversations became more candid.

Several doctors told me that the complaints process has become a tool for professional sabotage.

“If you want to take out your competition,” one told me, “Just get online and lodge a complaint, it’s that simple.”

No evidence is required to initiate an investigation, and once inside the system, doctors often find there is no clear path out.

But why would AHPRA do this to its own? What’s the motivation?

I asked several doctors, and the answers were strikingly similar.

“AHPRA is on a power trip” one said. “They’re just trying to justifying the rising registration fees.”

Others pointed to the agency’s internal metrics. “They’ve got KPIs to meet,” one added. “So, they manufacture targets.”

Power without accountability

Vivek Eranki, a doctor turned businessman, revealed that AHPRA spends $15 million annually on legal action—against the very doctors who fund it through registration fees.

The agency, he said, has “unlimited scope” and “no accountability” when pursuing investigations. There’s no standard of evidence required to launch a case. No clear end point. Just an opaque system that grinds down the profession.

Several speakers spoke of the growing danger in how the regulator enforces centralised directives—especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On 9 March 2021, AHPRA issued a directive warning that anyone who “undermined” the national Covid vaccine rollout risked “investigation and possible regulatory action.”