Director’s message

Welcome to the Winter 2025 edition of the PSR newsletter!

2024–25 summary

The last financial year was a historic one for the agency. Associate Professor Antonio Di Dio was appointed as Director in July 2024, Dr David Brand and Dr Annette Barratt were appointed as PSR’s first Associate Directors in August and November, and PSR received and finalised more cases than the agency has in previous years.

Below is a summary of the statistics for 2024–25 compared to the previous financial year.

The 2024-25 Annual Report that is currently in development will include more commentary about statistics and the trends seen in reviews. This will be publicly available in October and circulated to members once published.

Agency structure

As advised in PSR’s email on 12 June 2025, PSR farewelled Bruce Topperwien, who had been with PSR for over 12 years.

Bruce had two core roles within PSR, as the General Counsel and General Manager. The Special Counsel role has been retitled General Counsel and is filled by Margaret Parker. The General Manager role is temporarily filled by PSR’s Chief Operating Officer, Georgia Weichert.

Recruitment to fill the General Manager role on a permanent basis is underway and we are anticipating an outcome for this in August.

PSR appreciates your continued engagement during this transition. If you have any questions relating to this matter, please contact the office.

Appointments in the last financial year

Panel appointments

In the 2024–25 financial year, PSR appointed 28 new panel members.

Welcome to all these new members. Thank you for joining and your willingness to work with PSR. If you have any questions about the PSR process or agency, please contact the office.

Determining Authority (DA) Appointments

PSR has recently appointed 3 members to the DA.

The DA is the decision-making body in the PSR process who are responsible for considering (and ratifying, or refusing to ratify) section 92 agreements, and making a final determination on Committee reports which include the directions to impose on a person under review.

The DA is made up of several practitioners that represent each profession that PSR reviews, as well as a community member.

On 1 July 2025, the appointments of Dr Iain Dunlop (Chair), Dr Dilip Dhupelia (medical practitioner member) and Ms Jenni Millbank (non-practitioner member) became effective.

PSR extends our thanks to previous members Associate Professor Aniello Iannuzzi, Dr David Smith and Ms Katerina Angelopoulos for their service over the years.

Panel Member Training Framework (PMTF)

PSR has implemented phase 1 of our new PMTF earlier this year. PSR has since held 2 induction sessions, 2 Ask the Director or Associate Director sessions, 2 quarterly webinars and a nurse masterclass.

The following webinars are coming up:

• quarterly webinars on 29 October 2025
• induction session/refresher on 2 September 2025
• Ask the Director session on 15 October 2025.

Keep an eye on your emails for additional information and links to register.

Phase 2

PSR is currently working on phase 2 of the PMTF, which includes creating a competency framework that aligns with the Tribunal Competency Framework of the Council of Australasian Tribunal’s and a formalised Committee vision.

This phase includes creating a structured process to assess and provide feedback on Committee member performance, further training and development opportunities for current members and a formalised pathway to progress from panel member to Deputy Director that draws on performance against the competency framework.

This work is still ongoing, and further information will be provided as we approach implementation.