Later, the man applied for a working with children permit so he could continue working as a sports trainer. Even after the permit was rejected because Victoria Police flagged issues, the man unsuccessfully appealed.
A sports coach was also convicted in February 2023 of sex crimes while providing therapeutic massages to a teenager in the course of his coaching duties.
Health Complaints Commissioner Adjunct Professor Bernice Redley.Credit: Jason South
Almost one in four complaints raised with the HCC about massage therapists include allegations of sexual misconduct. Health Complaints Commissioner, Adjunct Professor Bernice Redley, said there were difficulties with oversight systems that relied on people to come forward and know where and how they can make a complaint.
“The numbers that we’re seeing have been reasonably persistent over a number of years, and that’s concerning – any sexual boundary violation is a concern, and that’s something that we take really seriously,” she said.
Redley said the HCC would sometimes learn via the media that police had charged massage therapists, as they had not been contacted by any alleged victims.
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“That concerns me because we are in a position where we can take immediate action. Sometimes the police may arrest someone, but they can get out on bail, and that may not necessarily stop those people from providing a service,” she said.
Massage therapists fall into a second tier of health services providers, which means they are not legally required to have formal qualifications or be registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) in the way doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists are.
Instead, they are captured by a secondary system of “negative licensing” in Victoria and several other states, where complaints made against them can be investigated and bans handed down when it is found that individuals present a risk to public safety.
An independent review led by former New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commissioner Sue Dawson was the latest to call for better protections for patients.
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The report raised serious concerns of sexual misconduct and recommended that Australian governments expand the national health regulation scheme to include new high-risk professions, with national codes and complaint handling processes for massage therapists and other non-registered health service providers.
The Association of Massage Therapists (AMT) is one of several industry bodies currently providing some sort of self-regulation of practitioners via a code of ethics and professional standards, while promoting the National Code of Conduct, which can be enforced by the HCC.
However, after more than a decade of pushing for greater oversight, the association’s chief executive officer, Rebecca Barnett, said more was needed to protect the public and uphold the reputation of the majority of safe therapists.
The AMT is calling for a national register of massage therapists, where members of the public can search the names of massage therapists to check their qualifications and determine whether they meet certain standards to practice. AMT also wants to see mandatory police checks for practitioners, something that is required by several industry groups, but not a legal requirement to work as a massage therapist in Australia.
“It’s not great look, because it makes it look like it’s an industry that is riddled with predators, which clearly isn’t the case,” Barnett said.
“The complaint system is fairly fractured, and it means that when people experience something that is very traumatic, they’re already confused, and then they’re trying to navigate where to turn.
“That fragmentation should be addressed with a more coherent form of regulation.”
An Australian Department of Health spokesperson said health ministers had asked the Health Workforce Taskforce to review the risk assessment method for deciding which professions needed to be regulated under the national scheme, to be completed by mid-2026.
“Sexual assault is a criminal offence, and the Australian Government has no tolerance for this behaviour,” the Health Department spokesperson said.
Anyone concerned about the conduct of a health service provider can contact the Health Complaints Commissioner at hcc.vic.gov.au or call on 1300 582 113.
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