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Advocacy rarely happens overnight. Many of the policy changes that affect psychologists are shaped through months, years, or even decades of meetings, consultations, submissions, and behind-the-scenes conversations before members ever see a public announcement. That's where AAPi spends much of its time: ensuring psychologists have a voice whenever decisions are being made about our profession.
AAPi’s advocacy starts with you. Every week, our team spends many hours speaking one-on-one with psychologists from across Australia. We listen to the challenges you're facing, what is keeping you awake at night, and where you think AAPi can make the greatest difference. Those conversations shape our priorities, strengthen our evidence, and ensure our advocacy reflects the real experiences of psychologists working across every area of practice.
Here's a snapshot of some of the work we've been undertaking in the last few days.
Better Access: We are beginning to see encouraging signs that our sustained advocacy regarding the 2025 Better Access changes is gaining traction. A number of potential reforms are currently being considered by Government, and AAPi is undertaking considerable work behind the scenes to advocate for practical improvements that reduce unnecessary administrative burden and improve access to psychological care.
Psychology-Assisted Therapy: Our advocacy regarding the Psychology-Assisted Therapy (PAT) two-tier continues to progress. We remain actively engaged with key stakeholders and are hopeful of providing members with a further update next week.
Commonwealth Prac Payment: One of the biggest lessons from the Commonwealth Prac Payment announcement is that there is still considerable work to do in educating governments and bureaucracies about the psychology profession.
The initial announcement referred only to "clinical psychology", creating widespread confusion for universities, students and the profession about who was actually eligible. It reinforced that many policymakers continue to view psychology through a narrow lens, rather than recognising the breadth of psychology training, registration pathways and endorsed areas of practice.
AAPi immediately engaged with ministerial offices, departmental officials and stakeholders to seek clarification and advocate for psychology students. Following these discussions, Government confirmed that eligibility extends beyond clinical psychology endorsement to include psychology courses leading to registration as a psychologist.
While this clarification was a significant improvement, it also demonstrated why AAPi's advocacy extends beyond responding to policy. We are continually educating governments, departments and decision-makers about the psychology profession so that future policies are designed with a better understanding of who psychologists are, how we are trained, and the vital role we play across Australia's health, disability, education and justice systems.
Our work is not finished. We continue to advocate for clearer eligibility criteria and for students studying at private higher education providers without Commonwealth Supported Places to be treated equitably, so that as many psychology students as possible can benefit from the scheme.
Meeting with Victoria's Chief Allied Health Officer: This week we also met with Victoria's Chief Allied Health Officer to discuss psychology workforce planning, graduate pathways and implementation of the Thriving Kids reforms. We highlighted the importance of ensuring rural and border communities are adequately supported, while also protecting the expertise of private psychologists working with children as disability and NDIS reforms continue to reshape service delivery.
Fitness to Drive: This week we lodged a submission to the National Transport Commission's review of the Assessing Fitness to Drive Standards. Our submission highlighted the critical role psychologists play in assessing cognition, behaviour, mental health and functional capacity, while calling for AAPi to be formally included in future development and review of the national guidelines. We also advocated for greater emphasis on functional assessment over diagnosis, clearer guidance on mandatory reporting, and practical resources to support psychologists undertaking these complex assessments.
Victims Support Schemes: AAPi continues to advocate for psychologists working within victim support schemes across Australia.
In New South Wales, we are advocating for higher psychology fees, appropriate indexation and improvements to administrative systems. In Queensland, we are gathering member feedback regarding concerns with Victim Assist Queensland to ensure members' experiences directly inform our advocacy with Government.
AI: AAPi continues to represent psychology through the Australian Digital Health Agency's Artificial Intelligence Enabled Care Expert Advisory Group. This week's meeting focused on finalising the group's Terms of Reference, ensuring future AI implementation appropriately balances innovation with safety, equity, governance, workforce impacts and consumer trust across healthcare, aged care and disability settings.
Thank you for helping shape our advocacy. Everything we do is stronger because of and for our members.
Whether you are contacting us about Better Access, the NDIS, Medicare, workforce challenges, private practice, education, regulation or emerging issues, your experiences help us identify problems early and take them directly to the people making decisions. Every conversation strengthens our evidence and helps ensure psychologists are represented by a unified, informed and credible voice.
While there is still much work to do, we're encouraged to see progress across a number of our key advocacy priorities. We'll continue working every day to ensure psychology is better understood, better represented, and better supported, because a stronger profession benefits not only psychologists, but the millions of Australians who rely on psychological care.
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