It is unclear why the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency has chosen now to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a ‘reference tool’.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) has taken a deeply divisive, politically charged decision that goes beyond its social and statutory roles. It should be reversed.
Since the beginning of Israel’s assault on Gaza two and a half years ago health professionals around the world have spoken out against the repeated attacks on hospitals and health personnel, the mass killings of civilians, including children, their forced starvation, and restrictions on access to medications and humanitarian relief. Criticisms have also been expressed by governments and international agencies, including those of the United Nations. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against several Israeli government ministers, including the Prime Minister, and the International Court of Justice is deliberating in a case accusing the government of genocide.
In Australia, grave concerns about the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have been widely expressed in the health professions, the universities, the arts and elsewhere, despite many attempts to suppress them as being antisemitic. For journalists and parliamentarians also, it has been made abundantly clear that they criticise Israeli actions at their peril.
This is the context of the announcement on 17 June 2026 by the Ahpra CEO, Justin Untersteiner, together with the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, that Ahpra has decided to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism as a ‘reference tool’. This raises extremely important questions about the potential implications and the proper role of the statutory health regulator.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism has been widely and repeatedly criticised by multiple individuals and organisations, including leading global human rights bodies, Israeli groups, historians and other scholarly commentators, and many others. The key issues relate to its vague and illogical wording and its repeated use to silence legitimate criticism of the actions of the Israeli government and the IDF.
The definition states that: ‘Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews’. Many commentators have pointed out that this statement can be applied to find antisemitism in almost any context. However, the main concerns relate to the eleven illustrative examples that follow it, which include references to criticisms of the State of Israel, denying Jewish self-determination and holding Jews collectively responsible for Israeli government actions.
Scholars, including Kenneth Stern, one of the principal drafters of the original working definition, have pointed out that it was never intended to be more than an educational and data-collection tool and so should not be used as a device to regulate discourse. Philosophers and historians have expressed concern that the examples blur the distinction between hostility towards Jews and legitimate criticism of the policies of the government of Israel.
The Jewish Council of Australia summarised the problem well in its submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion:
Definitions that conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism are harmful and counterproductive. They suppress political speech and debate, deepen division between communities, and risk intensifying the very antisemitism they purport to address. The IHRA working definition, as currently applied, and the Universities Australia definition, are the most significant examples of this problem.
No reasonable person contests that antisemitism is a real and deeply destructive form of prejudice that should be condemned and addressed wherever it occurs. The question, however, is why Ahpra has chosen to adopt a politically biased and intellectually flawed device that threatens fundamental Australian values.
Ahpra is not a political organisation. It is a statutory regulator established under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. Its paramount responsibility is to protect the public by ensuring that health practitioners are suitably qualified and practise safely and professionally. It must exercise its powers consistently with the National Law, administrative law principles, procedural fairness and the professional standards governing Australia’s registered health professions. These standards emphasise respect, non-discrimination, cultural safety, fairness, diversity and evidence-based decision-making.
Against this background, a number of questions naturally arise. Why is Ahpra departing from its long-established obligation to maintain institutional neutrality regarding contentious public issues? Most importantly, how does it intend to use this ‘reference tool’? Will it play any role in disciplinary proceedings? Will it be applied in the assessment of complaints against practitioners?
These are not hypothetical concerns. Numerous complaints arising from public commentary on the war in Gaza – many of them recognised even by Ahpra as vexatious – have already been made against Australian health professionals. If the boundary between criticism of a government and hostility towards Jewish people becomes blurred, uncertainty may be introduced into regulatory processes that require clarity, consistency and procedural fairness. Far from reducing the impacts of vexatious notifications, a definition of antisemitism that further weaponises the notifications process is likely to increase them.
Not only do health workers have a right to engage in advocacy for the protection of healthcare wherever it is under attack; there is a collective professional responsibility to do so. The IHRA definition arbitrarily introduces an element of risk for health workers who attempt to fulfill this responsibility by speaking out in relation to Israel’s destruction of health care in Gaza, despite the widespread condemnation globally of this destruction. Ahpra’s decision is contrary to the core values of both medicine and Australian society generally.
There is yet another matter of concern. The Ahpra announcement also commits to the establishment of an advisory panel of practitioners, ‘including those with lived experience of notifications underpinned by antisemitism’. No similar commitment has been made to those who have experienced other forms of discrimination, such as Islamophobia. This is in spite of an Australian government Ministerial Policy Direction in 2025 requiring Ahpra to improve health practitioner responses to racism and discrimination broadly, including, but not limited to, antisemitism.
Finally, it is unclear why Ahpra has taken this step, and why now, when pre-existing mechanisms already provide ample scope to manage instances of racism, including antisemitism.
Any perception that some forms of racism will be tolerated more than others potentially undermines trust in the regulator itself as a nonpartisan agency. The only acceptable course of action now is for Ahpra immediately to retract this decision and to undertake a broader public consultation.
Our health regulator must be politically impartial, conceptually rigorous and firmly focused on its statutory purpose: protecting the public through fair and evidence-based regulation.
Dr Sue Wareham OAM has spoken and written widely on peace and disarmament issues, and is President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia). She is a former Canberra GP. FB: @MAPWAustralia, T: @MAPW_Australia
Paul Komesaroff is Professor of Medicine at Monash University and Executive Director of the international NGO Global Reconciliation. His books include Experiments in Love and Death and Riding a Crocodile: A physician’s tale.