This has been a huge year for the Policy and Government Relations team and for advocacy across the APA more broadly. 

We are now three-quarters of the way through our four-year blueprint for change, woven into the APA’s Strategy: towards 2030 to ensure that our advocacy priorities are aligned with and reflected in the organisation’s overall strategic priorities. 

Our government relations activity has ramped up, with opportunities for engagement with funders and decision-makers across a range of priority policy areas. 

APA National President Dr Rik Dawson and I were fortunate to be part of two delegations to Canberra in 2025. On both occasions we met with members of parliament, senators, ministers and their advisers, progressing our two major campaigns for the year. 

The first of these was the 2025 federal election campaign, supported by our federal election statement, which we used as the basis for policy framing. 

The election statement will continue to inform our policy priorities throughout the term of this parliament. 

Midway through the year, we had to rapidly build and launch a second major campaign to respond to the NDIA’s 2024–25 Annual Pricing Review recommendations, in which the rate for physiotherapy under the NDIS was cut by 10 dollars an hour and the rate for travel cut and capped. 

That campaign—delivered in collaboration with members and our Media and PR team— dominated the second half of the year. 

Meanwhile, our advocacy with the minister, the NDIA, the government and the department is ongoing. Also in the disability portfolio, Thriving Kids was announced by Minister Mark Butler in early September.

In close collaboration with members, we built and delivered an advocacy campaign to ensure that physiotherapy is firmly in the frame of this important program when it commences in mid-2026. 

Pricing for physiotherapy has been a major focus throughout 2025—across all schemes, not just the NDIS. 

Two major papers commissioned by the APA are key to our advocacy and negotiations in this area. 

The first of these, the Hourly rate for the provision of physiotherapy services report prepared by the Nous Group, was commissioned by the APA in collaboration with our Business national group. 

While the report was designed to support members, we are also using information contained in it to advocate for better funding outcomes for the profession by educating funders on the real costs and value of physiotherapy.

The second piece of work that Nous was commissioned to undertake was an analysis of the NDIA’s 2024–25 Annual Pricing Review and subsequent decision to cut the hourly rate for physiotherapy. 

Both reports are important right now as we find ourselves in a tight fiscal environment, with funders (rightly) focused on the financial sustainability of the system. 

Physiotherapy, like all allied health professions, is feeling its vulnerability in the pricing arena—extending beyond the NDIS and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs scheme and into compensable schemes across the states and territories. 

To support the state branches in their ongoing conversations with compensable schemes, we are taking a stronger role and applying a national lens to align these conversations wherever possible, with a view to achieving sustainable rates for physiotherapy that reflect its true cost and value. 

These two reports prepared by Nous are invaluable in support of our arguments for what sustainable pricing looks like for our profession—and for these schemes—if the value of physiotherapy is properly understood as an investment rather than a cost. 

The primary result of that investment is better function and greater overall participation for the people we treat. Another major piece of work delivered by the team in 2025 was Physiotherapy. Shaping our future together: next generation white paper. 

The latest in a series of white papers developed by the APA, it was launched at the recent APASC25 conference. 

The paper emphasises the importance of supporting our students, new graduates and early-career physiotherapists as they make the transition from education to mature practice, with a focus on career pathways, reframing how we think about the emerging physiotherapy workforce, our professional culture and the case for reform. 

In addition to these major campaigns, our work across the reform landscape continues to progress, though not as quickly as we would like. 

The wheels of government do turn slowly. 

In primary care, we are actively advocating in relation to Medicare Benefits Schedule items for chronic disease management, the role of physiotherapy in Urgent Care Clinics, funding for multidisciplinary team models of care and implementation of the Scope of Practice Review recommendations including direct referrals and working to the top of our scope. 

We had some wins in the aged care space—specifically, in the Support at Home program—following many months of targeted advocacy and negotiations with the department. 

The new Aged Care Act 2024 came into effect on 1 November 2025 and the APA has continued to work with government to ensure that the Act delivers on its intent. 

I would like to thank the team and acknowledge the huge volume of work they’ve delivered over the past year—in particular, Strategy and Policy Specialist Bronwyn Darmanin, who has provided strategic leadership across the breadth of these campaigns and also had the lead role in the development of the next generation white paper. 

Big thanks are also due to Senior Policy Advisors Lowana Williams and Mirjana Jovetic and to Policy Advisors Rachel Bartley, Claire Martin and Brendan Faithfull, who joined the team during the year.

Finally, if you’d like to hear more frequent updates on all things advocacy, policy and government relations, be sure to log in to PhysioHub to catch my fortnightly video updates. 

There’s a few in the library already and I’ll be continuing to record them after a little summer hiatus. 

See you in 2026.