These two credentials sit at opposite ends of the scale. A white card is a short course that most construction workers need, searched about 33,100 times a month in Australia. A health registration is a professional status that takes years and sits on a public register searched around 74,000 times a month by people checking a practitioner. Both have prosecutions or police charges behind them, both have a clear official check, and both are targets because the reward for faking them is a job.
Start here by situation
| Your situation | Read |
|---|---|
| I need a white card | How to get a white card |
| I saw an offer for a white card without the course, or a suspicious training site | White card scams |
| I want to check whether a nurse or doctor is registered | Check the Ahpra register |
| I want to see documented fake nurse cases | Fake nurses: what the courts found |
| I am an employer checking a new hire | Official checks table |
The guides, in one line each
How to get a white card sets out who issues the card (a state or territory licensing body), the course code ASQA names, what Safe Work Australia says about showing the card on site, and the list of eight licensing bodies.
White card scams uses the 2016 NSW police case, where a man was charged with fraud over about 400 cards, and explains what a provider check looks like.
Fake nurses describes two Ahpra prosecutions we read in full, one in Queensland in December 2023 and one reported in February 2025, including the forged degree certificate.
Check the Ahpra register explains what the register shows, how to search it, and the one detail that trips people up: the practitioner’s registered name may differ from the name they use.
A note on what we left out
The documentary matrix for Australia also flags qualification fraud beyond these two, such as fake degrees. We did not find an Australian source we could open on fake degrees or language test certificates, so those have no page here.
What the cases teach about checking
Ahpra’s chief executive said after the 2023 conviction that the community rightly expects the health practitioners they see to have the necessary qualifications and experience and to be registered with the appropriate National Board. The Nursing and Midwifery Board chair said anyone who claims to be a registered nurse must be registered with the board. The standard is simple and so is the check.
For construction, Safe Work Australia puts the duty on the card holder and the site: workers must show the card to the person conducting the business and to inspectors. The 2016 case shows where that check stops: it confirms a card exists, not that the person did the training. That gap is why the training-provider check on training.gov.au and the licensing body’s own records matter.
Why we cover only two
The two credentials here are the ones for which we opened primary Australian sources: regulator pages, a prosecution release and a news report of police charges. Other credentials, such as degrees, trade licences, language tests and police checks, show up in search data, but until we can open a primary source we do not write about them.
Related checks elsewhere on this site
If your question is about a driving licence or an identity document rather than a card or practitioner, the driver licence hub and the identity hub cover those. For a single table of every official check we could document, including these two, see official checks. And if you have already paid for something that did not arrive, the paid-a-scammer page takes you through the first hour.
Frequently asked questions
Who issues a white card?
A state or territory licensing body, usually after you complete general induction training. ASQA says it does not issue or replace white cards.
Who keeps the register of nurses and doctors?
Ahpra, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, keeps the public register of registered health practitioners across 16 professions.
Do you cover fake degrees?
Not yet. We could not open an Australian source on them, so we left the page out rather than guess.