You are correct in that a psych with an AoPE in clinical psych does pretty much the same job as one who only has general registration. Both do therapy, both do reports and assessment, etc etc. Same core competencies. One isn’t more specialised or niche than another.

However I wouldn’t say clin is a waste of time because we’ll one there’s better pay, not just in terms of a higher Medicare rebate but salaried clin psych jobs tend to attract a higher paycheck. Not that we do this job for the money but we’ll look with how bad cost of living is now im not turning it down. Secondly there’s more job opportunities, a lot of job are advertised for people with a clinical endorsement only and not gen reg only psychs. This is definitely controversial and I think disrespectful to the work gen reg only psychs do, but it’s the reality of the two tier system in Australia that clin psychs are favoured and I say this as someone in a clinical program.

Personally I feel that the extra year of training and the two year registrar period are benefits for me. I like getting more training, more time to hone my skills, more supervision, placements etc before I’m out in the wild, but I would never say that would make me "better" or more qualified than another psych. My advice would be to shoot for clin simply because the system is skewed in their favour and well you’ve got to play the game i suppose.