Chilling effect. A million health workers at risk if they criticise Israel

Australia’s regulator of health practitioners has been taken over by a lobby group that has adopted a controversial definition of antisemitism on behalf of a foreign country. Andrew Brown reports.

Two years ago Australia’s medical regulator put its position in writing. Did not accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition from antisemitism. He said this clearly.

On 5 March 2024, Kym Ayscough, Executive Director of Regulatory Operations at the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA – a government agency) wrote to the Medical Association for the Prevention of War. Reports were circulating that AHPRA had adopted the IHRA definition.

Ayscough’s point was clear. The agency had made no such commitment.

That’s what happened on June 17, 2026.

And he did so not through a regulatory process or by consulting the professions he governs, but through a joint statement issued with the federal government’s Special Representative to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal.

Sit down with what this means. Segal occupies an office that did not exist until it was created by a Prime Minister. He did not participate in any elections. It has not passed any verification. It has no seat on any medical board and does not answer to any professional organization. He was appointed by and reported to a man.

But on June 17, Segal’s handbook became a reference standard for the regulatory agency that issues the controls.

Whether one million Australians have the right to work.

AHPRA’s overreach

Follow the line clearly. A politician founded the office. One person fills it. His document now guides how the regulator reads the conduct of every doctor, nurse and pharmacist in the country. No parliament voted for it. No profession was asked.

Access ranged from a single appointment directly to the record file of a paramedic in Townsville and a midwife in Perth, neither of whom were consulted in the process.

This is the part that AHPRA cannot explain.

A regulator that was supposed to be fiercely independent could not achieve this position through its own process. He announced that he was siding with the political appointee on one of the most controversial political questions in the world and that he was adopting the political appointee’s handbook. The independence empowering the regulator was conveyed in a joint press release.

Nearly one million registered health workers woke up to a new political reality. They were not asked. They were not consulted.

Most didn’t know this was happening.

When Healthy The company, a training provider for GPs across the country, surveyed more than a thousand GPs on June 23; 61% had no idea AHPRA was doing this. Only 150 doctors knew. The rest were already living under a regulatory standard they had never heard of before.

So what changed between March 2024 and June 2026? AHPRA did not say this. It reversed the written position on one of the most debated definitions in public life and offered no explanation as to who made the decision, what evidence was weighed, what legal advice was taken or why the professions were disabled.

Silence tells the story

AHPRA regulates doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, psychologists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, paramedics and allied health professionals. For these people, registration is not paperwork. It is the right to work. Behind it lies years of education, debt and family security.

The agency already has a mandate to combat racism, discrimination, harassment and abuse. The code of conduct requires attention to avoid discrimination. The social media guidance currently states that professional obligations apply to posts on Instagram or X.

The published guidance confirms that conduct that does not pose a risk to public safety or public confidence is unlikely to require an investigation.

So the question the regulator refuses to answer is an obvious one.

What gap is this designed to fill?

AHPRA’s own figures make it even clearer that there is no problem. Between October 2023 and February 2024, 63 reports involving 43 practitioners were received regarding social media posts related to the Gaza conflict. Of these, 38 alleged antisemitism or similar behavior and 25 alleged Islamophobia. More than 70 percent have been closed. Two practitioners faced potential disciplinary action. The current system worked.

He separated serious complaints from political noise.

No serious person would argue that antisemitism should be tolerated in healthcare. Jewish doctors, nurses, patients, and students have the same rights as anyone else to work and receive care without hatred. This is indisputable.

At issue is whether the medical regulator should adopt a definition that goes well beyond ordinary discrimination and encompasses Israel, Gaza, Zionism, occupation and political discourse.

Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA definition, spent years warning that the definition was being used as a weapon to silence speech. He wrote this not to discipline clinicians but to help institutions collect data.

UK example

Now look at Britain. Just last week, the British Medical Association (BMA), which represents more than 200,000 doctors and medical students, voted to reject the IHRA definition. He went further. He called on the government and NHS England to cancel compulsory adoption of the definition in healthcare until safeguards for freedom of expression are in place.

It also warned that the definition had a chilling effect, preventing doctors from expressing ethical concerns about Israel’s behavior in Gaza. The organization that exists to defend British doctors looked at this definition and moved to scrap it.

Read this contrast slowly. In Britain, doctors’ own bodies rejected this. In Australia, the body that has jurisdiction over a practitioner’s registration has adopted this. One protects doctors and rejects the definition. The other edits them and adopts them without asking.

If the BMA, which has no power to de-register anyone, deemed the IHRA definition too dangerous for freedom of expression in healthcare, why did a regulator who could end a career decide it was safe?

legal effect

The pushback was immediate and widespread. In late June, close to 2,000 practitioners from across Australia signed an open letter warning that the definition could target practitioners for legal advocacy. More than 60 health organizations have acknowledged the concerns.

Also objecting were the Islamic Medical Association of Australia, the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network, the NSW Civil Liberties Council and Liberty Victoria. So do Jewish organizations that reject the IHRA’s definition as harmful to the fight against antisemitism.

The pretense of consultation collapses on its own terms when prominent Jewish voices oppose a measure taken on their behalf.

The danger is not just the deletion of the record at the end of a process. The process is punishment. A complaint may be anonymous. It may be for political purposes. But when a practitioner files an application, they face months of correspondence, legal fees, stress, and loss of reputation. Employers are worried. Patients Google a name and see a claim before any findings are made. Even when cleaned, stains remain. That’s how law works. He doesn’t need to win.

It just needs to tire and scare.

One of Australia’s leading medical voices on Gaza, Dr. Consider Muhammad Mustafa. Whether you agree with every word or not is beside the point. The point here is whether a doctor should fear professional ruin for speaking publicly about civilian deaths or attacks on hospitals.

If a doctor says Israel is committing war crimes, is this political speech or abuse? If a nurse condemns the bombing of hospitals in Gaza, is this advocacy or antisemitism? These questions are currently on the minds of more than one million regulated Australians.

AHPRA said it was reviewing the Harmful Notifications Framework and establishing an advisory panel. Good morning my baby. But you still don’t put safety precautions on a gun when dispensing it.

The honest act is to first lay down the weapon.

The regulator’s role is to ensure patient safety and maintain clinical standards. Not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is not the court of Middle Eastern history. And it is not the arm of a political envoy appointed by a Prime Minister.

In 2024, he denied this decision in writing. He did it secretly in 2026. He did a single job he managed without asking, alongside a political appointee, using that appointee’s handbook.

Every step of this process is recorded and every step requires an answer. Who decided this? Who was consulted? What evidence was weighed? What legal advice was received?

Why did a regulator give up its independence in a joint statement with a politician’s envoy?

Until AHPRA responds, one million Australians have the right to ask the question they are trying to avoid.

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