More than 12,000 people have signed a petition supporting Victorian Dr. Jareth Kok after he was suspended from practice for sharing posts and writing his views on social media.
An anonymous complaint was filed against Kok with the Victorian Medical Board of Australia.
The Board later filed an action against Kok with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), who deemed his social media activity “professional misconduct.”
VCAT considered 12 years’ worth of social media posts by Kok from 2010 and 2021.
In some of his disputed posts, Kok remarked that there were only two genders, said COVID vaccines were made from “body parts,” and was found to have “demeaned” abortion practitioners by referring to abortions as “slaughter.”
Kok is currently awaiting his penalty to be determined, which could range from a warning to having his practice registration wiped completely.
The petition also calls for personal opinions expressed off-duty to be excused from the realm of professional misconduct, for authorities to cease “trawling” doctors’ private accounts, and to prevent further overreach.
“Punishing speech chills every clinician in the country, undermines public trust, and signals that licencing can be used for censorship,” the petition reads.
“The tribunal itself rejected a significant portion of the allegations and many posts were private or satirical, posing no risk to patients.”
The petition says ideology is intruding where medicine should prevail.
So far, Kok’s case has drawn the support of several conservative commentators, including former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, who called the decision “disturbing.”
“A free and democratic society must protect the right to challenge the orthodoxy of the day.”
“The decision raises concerns about whether Australia will continue to allow employers, regulators, and government to exercise power over free speech and the expression of personal, political, and religious opinions,” the group said.
