Why haven’t naturopaths and Western herbalists been registered yet?
Naturopaths have been previously registered in the Northern Territory. The federal Mutual Recognition Act 1992 superseded this territory-based legislation and due to the low numbers of practitioners in the territory new replacement legislation was not drafted. The Victorian government initiated an investigation in 2003 into the registration of naturopaths and herbalists as part of its aim of improving public safety and raising the standards of complementary medicine practitioners following the implementation of the Chinese Medicine Registration Bill 2000. The report, entitled The Practice and Regulatory Requirements of Naturopathy and Western Herbal Medicine was published in 2005 and strongly recommended that these professions be statutorily regulated (a copy of the report is available in the links section). The implementation of statutory regulation in Victoria was delayed indefinitely in deference to the broader federal National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for Health Profes
