Imagine at the upcoming Federal election, either the Liberal or Labor governments had;

• Control of 95% of the media (but denied any unfair dealings when preventing other parties from advertising)
• Control of the Australian Electoral Commission and set seat boundaries to their advantage
  
• The ability that after winning government (fancy that), to determine their own salaries and entitlement packages

Worried if this happened in Australia? Sound a bit like the Zimbabwe regime? Well maybe, but actually this situation is also how our APA is fashioning itself.

The APA denies any unfair dealing with members in relation to advertising. Yet their policy is "If your course competes with ours, no advertising allowed". If as a member, you question or offer an alternative solution on the APA FB page, your post is removed. That is a dictatorship mentality.
The APA controls accreditation of courses, but has no mandate or recognizable skill set to do this, but still charges a fee and sets the boundaries.
The APA now primarily seeks to make profit from members, even though as a financially responsible organisation their mandate is to serve and provide services for the betterment of all members

Feb 27 is the time for the elected leaders of the NAC committee to say to the Board and the executive whether they want this process to stop and be properly evaluated before it is implemented or allow it to continue. In making a decision, they need to consider the PD landscape in 5 and 10 years forward. Given current PD in Australia is diverse, vibrant and world leading, why are we even considering a monopoly. We all know that monopolies become complacent, standardised and lack creativity or flexibility. Is that the future we wish for our upcoming practitioners?

The NAC needs to take control and consider;

• Reverse the current decision limiting freedom of advertising, expression and use of APA facilities
• Engage with the APC to have them as the independent accrediting organisation
• Assist the APC to develop pathways to specialisation, which include common core modules (ethics, clinical reasoning)
• Encourage a broad range of providers to provide clinical training that members can choose from and make these courses easily accessible to members Members can choose training to suit clinical need, or accumulate towards specialisation if that is their goal
• The APA steps back from a monopoly position and sees itself as a facilitator in the development of this process

A truly powerful organisation is powerfully true to its members. Lets make this happen.