Socialists in Healthcare statement on AHPRA adoption of IHRA definition of antisemitism

We condemn the decision of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israel. This decision is an enormous attack on the free speech of the nearly one million healthcare workers registered with AHPRA. It is a clear attempt to silence healthcare workers speaking out about the genocide in Gaza by threatening our careers and livelihoods. The adoption of this definition by AHPRA helps to normalise its use and will open the door for other industries to try and censor their workers in the same way. This is not just an attack on healthcare workers; it’s an attack on all those who value freedom of speech and who stand against genocide.

We will not be silent while those in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and across the Middle East, including fellow healthcare workers, are bombed, kidnapped, tortured and killed. We will not be silent when we know the Labor Albanese government’s complicity in these acts of genocide and war.

Since October of 2023 we have seen attacks on healthcare workers and hospitals in breach of international law over and over again. We have heard the testimonies of healthcare workers subject to gross violations of their human rights in the custody of the Israeli military - including cruel and degrading treatment, torture, sexual violence and denial of medical care. We have watched as healthcare workers within Gaza have faced impossible choices with limited resources, with some having to do surgeries with no anaesthesia on hospital floors and choose between leaving their patients to die or risking death or detainment.

Israel’s genocide is an incontrovertible fact. Speaking out about these atrocities is a requirement of our ethical codes of practice as healthcare workers and the duty of any person with a conscience. To ask us to remain indifferent when the institutions who profit from our labor and our own government lend support and legitimacy to the perpetrators of this genocide is to inflict moral injury. It is dishonest and dangerous to conflate political criticism of the Israeli state with criticism of Jewish people as a whole. Will the IHRA definition be used to silence and persecute the Jewish healthcare workers who have been critical of Israel? This is absurd but plausible based on the definition, and contradicts the objective of combatting anti-semitism.

Racism has no place in healthcare - against any religious or ethnic minority. Over the past two years Muslim, Arab and Palestinian healthcare workers have reported increased discrimination and harassment in the workplace. Many have been subject to vexatious complaints intended to silence their political expression. Far from decreasing racism within healthcare, this statement will legitimize the weaponisation of AHPRA complaints as a way to persecute those standing against ethnic cleansing.

AHPRA complaints are a source of significant distress and anxiety for healthcare workers. There have already been many vexatious complaints submitted against healthcare workers for political expression, often for things like social media posts that aren’t directly related to their work. Reforms have been implemented to try and decrease the incidences of suicide and self-harm associated with practitioners going through the complaints process but the IHRA adoption is a step backwards.

We have already seen how silencing workers who stand against the genocide works in practice to stifle dialogue and hamper care. Last year at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne a Grand Round on ‘Children and War’ was cancelled to mitigate the risk that it would provide a forum to talk about the at least 21,000 children who have been killed, or the 50,000 injured, in Gaza. The comfort of those who support genocide was seen as more important than discussing one of the largest causes of morbidity and mortality in children today.

We need to call for the decision to be reversed outright, not simply paused. Some are calling for a pause on the adoption until there is opportunity for further consultation, greater transparency or for legal clarification. It is appalling that this decision was made by AHPRA without any discussion or consultation with its healthcare worker members. However, there is no level of clarification or consultation that would make the adoption of the IHRA definition supportable. In any circumstance it remains an unacceptable attack on free speech and a threat to healthcare workers’ ability to speak openly against genocide without fear of professional ramifications.

We condemn AHPRA’s decision to adopt the IHRA definition and call for:

1. AHPRA to immediately reverse their adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition directly conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism; its use by AHPRA will allow for disciplinary action to be taken against healthcare workers for standing against genocide. AHPRA should instead adopt the Australian Human Rights Commission's National Anti-Racism Framework as a foundation for its approach to preventing racial discrimination.
2. AHPRA to be transparent with their membership and release a statement explaining how they arrived at the decision to adopt the definition and who was involved (alongside releasing all documents that relate to this decision).
3. An immediate moratorium on any complaints, investigations or disciplinary action related to lawful political speech about Israel/Palestine until the policy is reviewed.
4. Implementation of clear policy protections that allow for lawful political expression by registered health practitioners, including explicit guidance that criticism of state actions (including those of the state of Israel) is not in itself inherently misconduct. AHPRA should work with its members, unions, professional associations and community groups in the development of these safeguards.
5. AHPRA to acknowledge the rising influence of the far right and how their politics normalise racism and bigotry and have led to increasing rates of hate crimes, domestically and internationally. AHPRA should commit to active advocacy against the overt and violent racism of the far right.
6. Healthcare unions and other healthcare bodies to firmly and publicly state their opposition to the AHPRA adoption of the IHRA definition.