Thanks to all members who’ve supported AMA Victoria’s Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff (GROSS) campaign. Your voices are making a difference. The Department of Health and Minister for Health Mary-Anne Thomas have responded positively to our advocacy, and we’re continuing to push for concrete commitments.

Our current priority: scrapping the requirement for registered medical practitioners employed in public health services to obtain a Working With Children Check (WWCC) in Victoria.

Medical practitioners already undergo rigorous national screening and ongoing monitoring through Ahpra registration- at a cost of over $1,000 annually. Forcing them to also obtain a WWCC is duplicative, time-consuming, and unnecessary. Yet under current legislation, Victorian public health services require Victorian medical practitioners to provide a WWCC as part of their employment paperwork. Even geriatricians, who don’t treat children.

By contrast, registered teachers and police are exempt from needing a separate WWCC. Their professional registration is rightly accepted as sufficient. But not for doctors.

Queensland has already acted. Registered health practitioners employed or carrying on a business as part of their professional duties in that state are exempt from WWCC requirements (known there as “blue cards”) on the basis of their Ahpra registration: Blue cards for registered health practitioners – Queensland Government.

It’s time Victoria followed suit.

We’re calling for:

• The Victorian Government to formally adopt the GROSS initiative;
• Minister for Health Mary-Anne Thomas to appoint Department of Health Secretary Jenny Atta PSM as a GROSS champion and embed the initiative in Statements of Priorities;
• An end to duplicative mandatory training across health services- our original and still central GROSS priority;
• A legislative exemption for Ahpra-registered medical practitioners from WWCC requirements, via amendment to the Worker Screening Act 2020 or Worker Screening Regulations 2021, consistent with the exemption already granted to registered teachers.

What you can do:

• Share our petition → Megaphone Petition
• Tell us your “Stupid Stuff” (big or small, individual workplace or statewide) → Submit here (thank you to everyone who’s already submitted!)
• Write to your MP or relevant Ministers to demand real change

We’re committed to building a system that respects doctors’ time, reduces pointless bureaucracy, and puts patient care first. Together, we can get rid of the stupid stuff.