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Qld bill to silence doctors

THE END OF MEDICAL FREE SPEECH IN QUEENSLAND

New legislation introduced in Queensland, the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, will greatly enhance the government regulator’s powers for censoring doctors in Queensland.

The Bill grants APHRA new and unprecedented powers for coercively silencing doctors who stray from the officially mandated ‘narrative’ and preventing vital information ever reaching the ears of the public.

The new bill will overturn centuries of medical practice by replacing the principle that a doctor’s loyalty must, first and foremost, be to the well-being of their patient, and replacing it with a new guiding principle – upholding and safeguarding ‘public trust’ and ‘confidence’ in public health authorities.

The Explanatory Notes say the regulatory body will be free to take action against a doctor or health practitioner in any way they deem “necessary or convenient” to ‘safeguard’ public confidence and safety.

APHRA will also be able to publicly ‘name and shame’ doctors before they have been found guilty of anything.

This robs doctors of their right to the ‘presumption of innocence’, ‘natural justice’ and ‘due process’.

It also takes away their right to practice their profession without political harassment or interference.

Doctors should be free to engage in clinical debate on clinical issues to do with the effectiveness of treatment options and must be free to advise their patients honestly on any matter raised during a doctor-patient consultation.

If doctors aren’t allowed to discuss alternatives to standardised medical options with their patients, then the legal requirements for informed consent can’t be satisfied and the standard of patient-care will suffer.

If we aren’t careful, health protocols in Queensland will no longer be adopted based on experience and evidence-based medicine, but on the diktats of public health officials and regulators who have never treated a single patient in their lives.

By delegating such unlimited powers to AHPRA, the Government has virtually handed them a blank cheque to do whatever they like.

The Bill contains no clear avenues for appeal or redress for doctors unfairly targeted by AHPRA, even if subsequently cleared of wrongdoing.

It is important to note that AHPRA is an unelected, executive agency that answers to no-one.

This means that nothing they say or do is subject to questioning, verification or independent review by any jurisdiction.

APHRA must not be given the last word on what ‘truth’ in medicine is.  There must always be room for ‘dissenting’ views and debate.

Without that, we are no longer a democracy.

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New threat to free expression

BRITISH GOVERNMENT MOVES TO SHUT DOWN WHISTLEBLOWERS AND THOSE WHO PUBLISH ‘LEAKED’ INFORMATION

A draconian new National Security Bill was introduced to the UK Parliament last week, by British Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Journalists, academics and human rights groups who receive any funding from a foreign government could face life imprisonment if they are found to have “disclosed leaked information” which “prejudices the safety or interests” of the U.K.

The Bill abandons the current distinction between spying and leaking, and between leakers, whistleblowers and journalists.

This appears to be deliberate on the government’s part.  The clear intention being to prevent journalists from any “onward disclosure” of information, whether already leaked or not.  It in effect makes them as liable in criminal law as the primary source of the leak.

One British MP also asked why the word ‘prejudice’ was used, not ‘damage’:

“I am curious about the use of the word “prejudicial”, which I reread several times, rather than “damaging”, which appears in other legislation. How is “prejudicial” to be defined where conduct does not actually cause damage?”

The Home Secretary explained that there was no definition for ‘prejudice’ in the bill as it would be “left up to ministers to decide”.

There are NO protections for whistleblowers in the Bill, which also deliberately omits the usual “public interest defence”.

Journalists and others publishing information the government claims damages national security will now face 14 years in jail instead of the current maximum of two years.

Maurice Frankel, director of the Freedom of Information Campaign, said the UK government “wants to make it easier to secure convictions under the secrets acts, increase penalties and abandon key provisions that now provide a public interest defence for disclosing information”.

“This disproportionate and oppressive set of proposals is presumably intended to ensure that officials and journalists are too terrified of the consequences to risk making or publishing unauthorised disclosures about intelligence, defence, international relations, energy policy or law enforcement.”

When introducing the Bill, the Home Secretary said: “The UK is a leader in this, along with our Five Eyes and international partners”.

In other words, keep an eye out for a similar Bill to be introduced here in Australia before long.

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