Hi Luise,
On reading my last email I realise I did not clearly answer your questions. So, I will try to explain a little better - I hope others correct me if I have anything wrong.
In the past, as would be the situation in many countries, homeopathy was represented across Australia by numerous associations or societies. Even though we all basically practiced homeopathy, each association had a different "flavour" and the tendency was for suspicion or disagreement to exist between them (sound familiar?)
I think the joining together occurred when the Australian government began to encourage a "harmonisation" process of educational standards across many disciplines and industries so that Australian qualifications meant the same as interational qualifications and vice versa - that the award of certificate, diploma, bachelor, etc by government accredited training institutions meant the same as similar government accredited awards across many countries and could not be issued unless similar levels of education or competencies had been achieved by the recipient. This process was meant to simplify movement and recognition knowledge and skills between countries
This harmonisation process meant that many professions, disciplines, or industries (P,D, or I) documented the knowledge and skills considered necessary for practice or employment within their field. Once these standards had been developed by the P,D, or I, and the government was confident that they had been developed by consensus across the whole of that P,D, or I, the government would endorse them. Courses then had to provide the necessary elements within their curricula to produce graduates that met these standards, if they were to be accredited by the government and have their awards mean anything.
So, some visionary homeopaths set about pulling all the associations together across Australia to put down on paper the underpinning knowledge and skills (competencies) considered essential for practice as a homeopath while leaving room to move for personal preferences and different approaches. This was a huge achievement as you can imagine because this whole process would have been useless unless there was true consensus across the whole of the profession - the government had to be convinced this was so before it would endorse the competencies. No one person or association could be excluded from this process - everyone had an invitation and opportunity to be involved.
The key point to realise is that government did not decide what these competencies should be as it had no idea - it only endorsed what consensus said they were (pleeeeeeze don't ask me the " how could we possibly reach consensus as there are so many different opinions" questions as we have been there so many times before - fundamentally there is a name that defines the practice and there is a foundational text guiding practice - at this level, it is not that hard to work out what the standards should be - all the rest, while perhaps useful, are just add-ons).
In doing this, many of the separate associations, realising that we could all hold the same core principles while providing room for individual application of those principles, decided that there was no reason why there should be separateness when goal could more easily be achieved if there was unity. So an amalgamation took place between many of them to form the only national association representing homeopaths - the Australian Homeopathic Association (AHA). This allowed representation of homeopathy to both media and government bodies at a national level and provided recognition in their eyes. Some smaller non-national associations still exist with specific focusses to meet the needs of their members.
At the same time, it was recognised that for credibility and maintenance of the new standards, separate associations should not have separate registering roles or there would be a risk of standards being watered down or fractured along "party lines." All associations at this time agreed to give up their registering role and hand it over to a body formed to maintain and monitor the standards, register practitioners who graduated from schools with programs that met the standards, and investigate complaints by the public of practitioners in breach of these standards. It is now called the Australian Register of Homeopaths (AROH). It is managed by representatives from the homeopathic associations and the public.
AROH cannot make or change the standards - this can only be done by the profession with consensus, but it can monitor the standards that have already been established. Associations no longer have a registering role but look after the interests of registered homeopaths and provide services and representation for them. The government has no power to intervene at all - it just endorsed the standards as "homeopathy" that the united profession set before it after it confirmed that there was consensus across the profession. These standards are now the governments understanding of homeopathy - no body else can go to them claiming something different.
As already written this is good in principle but because there is no protection for the title of homeopath within government legislation as there is with doctors and chiropractors, people can still set up practice with no training at all. We are asking government to legislate in this area but they are very slow to do so, firstly because it is an expensive and time consuming process for government and unlike doctors or homeopathy, no-one complains that they are being injured by homeopathy. Secondly, and this is a less acknowledged reason, such legislation would provide homeopathy and homeopaths with greater credibility than some politically powerful areas want. In the meantime, we just try to educate the public. Also, health funds will not provide rebates to patients of homeopaths unless they are registered with AROH, so we are slowly getting there.
I for one am very pleased that all those earlier homeopaths put in all that hard work. We are much stronger for it. Perhaps this now answers your questions.
--
Kind regards,
Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Information - Education - Treatment)
http://www.homeopathyplus.com.au
Do No Harm Initiative (Homeopathic Immunisation)
http://www.d-n-h.org