Australian Politics
The do-gooder hate keeps flowing
Albanese's bright idea has been a disaster. It has injected hate into Australian race relations. He has done huge damage and will be held to account for it one way or another, probably at the next Federal election. He has divided Australians instead of uniting them. But Leftists love destroying what they can of existing society so he is a great success by Leftist standards
The do-gooder fool below thinks "Voice" will solve Aboriginal problems but there is no mechanism for it to do so. Millions are already being spent to solve the problems of Aborigines but nothing governments have tried works. A huge problem among Aborigines is domestic violence. I have seen it in action myself. But since when has any government been able to do anything about domestic violence?
Ever since the missionaries were booted out of Aboriginal settlements, Aboriginal life has gone steadily downhill. I have known Aborigines from both the missionary era and the post-missionary era and the difference is stark
Television icon Ray Martin has labelled No voters as 'dinosaurs and d***heads' in a scathing speech to a cheering crowd of Voice supporters.
The veteran journalist and presenter ripped into No voters during the Yes rally at Marrickville's Factory Theatre in Sydney's inner west on September 28.
Video obtained by Daily Mail Australia shows Martin taking aim at the No side's 'If you don't know, vote No' slogan, saying: 'If you don't know, find out what you don't know.
'What that slogan is saying is if you're a dinosaur or d***head who can't be bothered reading, then vote No.'
Martin then went on to slam the No campaign's primary argument that there is not enough information on how the Voice will operate, arguing such detail 'simply don't matter'.
'They never did matter. Honestly, they're irrelevant,' he said.
'Over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, no matter who is in government, the details will change, as will the members of the Voice delegation according to the needs and priorities and policies that are meant to close that bloody gap.
'You can't write all that into the constitution.'
The speech was given in front of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and was held in his electorate of Grayndler.
'What we've done for 235 years, often with the best of intentions and spending billions of your taxpayer dollars, is leave Indigenous Australians as the poorest, sickest, most suicidal, most imprisoned, jobless homeless people in our rich society.
'With poverty and third-world diseases like scabies, for God's sake, that rubs their skin raw and trachoma that sends them blind five times the rate of white Australians, and rheumatic heart disease that kills so many Aboriginal children, guesstimate of two kids a week. And an overall life expectancy which is 20 years less than the rest of Australians.
'This referendum is clearly not about dividing Australia. It's about caring.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12590907/Ray-Martin-Voice-spray.html
*******************************************Leftist ban thwarted by Christians
The Left are always wanting to ban something. Homosexuals must be prevented from getting help with their unwanted inclinations, apparently. No freedom of choice for them!
Independent MP Alex Greenwich has urged the Minns government to support his bill to outlaw gay conversion amid fears among LGBTIQ+ groups that Labor’s promise to ban the practice has been stalled following a targeted campaign by religious groups.
The NSW government is consulting on legislation to ban so-called gay conversion therapy, after promising before the March election it would follow Victoria in ending the practice.
But the Australian Christian Lobby told its members last week the laws “have been put on pause, no doubt influenced by our phone campaign”.
The ACL has promised to campaign against the bill, and recently appointed a NSW state director, Joshua Rowe, to spearhead its fight against the legislation.
In an email to members seen by the Herald, ACL managing director Michelle Pearse said the group had made more than 8000 calls “explaining their concerns and asking MPs to consider the negative consequences for our children”.
The ACL did not respond to a request for comment.
The government has denied it paused the bill, saying consultation is ongoing and legislation will be finalised “in due course”. But despite not giving any timeline on when it might introduce the bill, there was an expectation it would be finalised before the end of this year.
That is now extremely unlikely, with a bill not expected to surface until the first half of next year at the earliest.
Premier Chris Minns announced Labor would introduce a bill banning gay conversion therapy before the election after Greenwich said he would make it a priority in this term.
Rather than support Greenwich’s bill, which has already been drafted and introduced into the parliament, the government has insisted on drafting its own bill.
But concerns about pushback from religious groups, and the prospect of delays to the reform, have prompted Greenwich and others to urge Labor to drop its bill and support his legislation before the end of 2023.
This week the heads of three peak gay conversion survivor groups wrote to NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley urging the government to support Greenwich’s bill, saying it “strikes the right balance and is sensitive to the needs of all affected stakeholders”.
“The focus of the bill is to protect LGBTQ people from harmful attempts to change who they are and who they love in a way that keeps communities of faith together and allows them to practice their doctrine. The bill takes the least punitive approach to prevent conflict between parties,” the letter stated.
“We are especially concerned that the Australian Christian Lobby has now claimed credit for delaying progress on reforms. Banning conversion practices should be about protecting the health and welfare of LGBTQ people first and foremost, not appeasing those who seek to perpetrate those practices at the expense of the health and welfare of LGBTQ people.”
‘There is no other form of abuse where consultation with the perpetrators of that abuse would lead to a pause in reform.’
Greenwich has worked closely with the government seeking support for his landmark equality bill in the new parliament, but urged Labor to support a bill he said had been drafted in consultation with survivors.
“The bill is ready to go, supported by survivors, and consistent with schemes already adopted in Victoria and New Zealand. There is enough time to debate and pass the reform this year through the parliament,” he said.
“There is no other form of abuse where consultation with the perpetrators of that abuse would lead to a pause in reform, and I urge the government and parliament to make NSW safer for LGBTQ people and prohibit this harmful practice that tragically leads to suicide in too many cases.”
Gay conversion law would ban suppression of gender identity
Victoria, Queensland and the ACT all have bans on gay conversion practices, though they vary in scope. The Victorian model faced a fierce pushback from conservative groups when it passed in 2021.
While the NSW government has not explained why it would not support Greenwich’s legislation, senior Labor sources indicated that their bill was unlikely to go as far as Victoria’s.
However, Greenwich said that while his bill was based on the Victorian model, it made a number of key changes to ensure things such as prayer or parents referring children to psychologists were not captured by the law.
A spokeswoman for the premier’s office said the government had consulted with more than 130 stakeholders on its bill, including LGBTQI+ groups and religious organisations to “develop a model that is right for NSW”.
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Australian Medical Doctors May Need to Arm Themselves with a Law Degree
Australian doctors have expressed displeasure with medical regulatory bodies like Ahpra and the TGA, stating that doctors with different views are being targeted and suspended. TrialSite interviewed some doctors who served in the system and who were suspended unfairly for expressing differing opinions. They emphasized that to be fully protected in the Australian health system, doctors may need to be well-versed in the law before they start practicing.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) regulates medical practice in Australia. Some doctors fear that people anonymously use Ahpra as a weapon against them. There are also concerns that external bodies in the United States like the Federation of State Medical Board (FSMB) may influence the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities (IAMRA). The IAMRA is responsible for effective medical regulation worldwide. They achieve this by providing guidance to the medical profession and bolstering scientific, educational and collaborative activities in the field.
What does the FSMB do?
Founded in 1912, the FSMB is a body or association representing state medical licensing in the U.S. Its CEO, Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, is regarded as one of the most influential physicians in the U.S. He released healthcare policies that were approved by the American Medical Association and authored research papers on how to boost vaccine usage. In April 2022, the FSMB adopted a misinformation policy and released a manifesto to be heavy-handed with doctors spreading misinformation. This raised suspicions, especially among vaccine-hesitant doctors, as there appeared to be a seeming connection between Dr. Chaudhry's effort to influence the vaccine-hesitant and “boost vaccine usage” and his strict approach towards doctors expressing hesitancy or spreading opposing information about the vaccines.
Pressured by regulatory bodies
Interestingly, medical authorities from different countries, including Australia, formed an international arm in September 2000, IAMRA. The IAMRA– a non-profit–supports medical regulatory bodies globally. In June 2004, the IAMRA said that it was separate from the FSMB. However, Chaudhry was IAMRA secretary and FSMB CEO at the same time in 2020.
Before the FSMB's adoption of the misinformation policy, the IAMRA had hosted webinars in 2020, to address ethical concerns among doctors and educate them on ways to combat COVID-19 misinformation. An Australian doctor, who would prefer to stay anonymous, said, "... in 2021, as I said, their agenda was to be heavy-handed with all doctors who spread misinformation."
Ahpra wields a strong authority in Australia. As such, a few doctors were concerned that the FSMB may have influenced decisions at Ahpra because its current CEO, Martin Fletcher, was a director at the IAMRA until the end of 2022. He was one of the panelists in a global webinar educating regulators on how to respond to the challenge of vaccine-hesitant doctors.
Were these concerns justified?
The Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) and Ahpra are at the forefront of fighting COVID-19 misinformation, and they continually advocate for the dissemination of the right information on vaccine safety.
In 2023, Ahpra released a 2021 survey result reflecting the distrust among doctors of its regulatory services. Doctors in Australia had the most negative views compared with other health practitioners, and only 35% of doctors had positive reviews of Ahpra.
Part of the result said, "Distrust was undercut by practitioners’ personal views of how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled, but also related to perceived unfairness and injustice of Ahpra and the Boards’ processes."
In October 2021, the TGA suspended a medical doctor for using ivermectin on a patient with severe COVID-19 symptoms. The patient had initially sought treatment at another hospital but had only been told to wear a mask and isolate, without receiving any early treatment. As the patient’s condition had worsened after returning home, they had sought treatment from the doctor instead of going back home due to concerns about being unable to say goodbye to their family if they were to pass away.
A junior doctor in that hospital then made a complaint, stating that there was a case of polypharmacy and encephalopathy.
Speaking with TrialSite, she said, "I wanted to find out what happened to my patient, so I called this doctor up… She basically said to me that she didn't know why she made a complaint against me and that her boss was the one who actually told her to make the complaint."
The junior doctor’s supervisor was Associate Professor Naren Gunja, a toxicologist at the Westmead Hospital. She mentioned that she’d tried speaking to him, but he didn’t listen to her.
"So, I did a bit of research and discovered that he actually went to the media and spoke about a case of ivermectin overdose in a patient that he had treated at casualty," she continued.
“I couldn’t understand why Dr. Gunja, a toxicologist, chose to warn the public about the risk of ivermectin. It is well known that taking ivermectin in combination with other medications can effectively treat COVID-19, and the occurrence of ivermectin overdose is rare.”
The ivermectin overdose case went viral from September 1 to September 3, 2021, after Gunja had spoken to the media, advising the public to ignore online claims that ivermectin was a cure for COVID-19. And on September 10, 2021, the TGA banned ivermectin as an off-label treatment for COVID-19.
According to our source, a second complaint came from an anonymous source with the pseudonym – John Smith. Eventually, the evidence presented in the complaint was traced back to Ahpra. All these contributed to her suspension in October 2021.
Additionally, in February 2021, the COVID Medical Network came under intense scrutiny from the TGA for endorsing the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 infection.
The COVID Medical Network (CMN) is a group of doctors in Australia who have reservations about COVID-19 vaccines and have voiced their dissatisfaction with the government's pandemic response. Instead of recommending vaccines, they prescribe alternative medications like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to address and curb the effects of COVID-19 infection.
This may explain why a doctor had to publicly renounce and dis-endorse the group within seven days to regain medical registration after being urgently suspended for having a link on her website to the CMN website.
A case of corruption among regulatory bodies
In October 2022, the Australian government made over 30 changes to the national law guiding the regulation and registration of doctors. This also included disciplinary action against doctors who had broken the law. It was called the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2022.
This law gave Ahpra the power to release a public statement regarding a practitioner who is under assessment or investigation if there was a "reasonable belief" that the practitioner's behavior, performance or health could seriously endanger public safety. Some doctors fear that Ahpra or the TGA could use this law as a means of bullying.
According to our first anonymous source, Ahpra weaponized the reasonable belief concept to take down medical doctors with different beliefs.
She implied that Ahpra could influence the subjective state of mind of the medical board by making statements about a doctor with no medical basis. "It has so much power. They can target any doctor they like. All it needs to do is to have an anonymous complaint against a particular doctor, and that doctor could be urgently suspended without verification of the facts."
People have complained that Ahpra bullies and has numerous scandals. After three Senate, a state inquiry into Ahpra’s conduct and according to recent polls, many doctors, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) remain unhappy with Ahpra’s framework. Ahpra is an agency with a five-year contract with the National Board to carry out administrative duties like notifications and collection of subscriptions.
The regulatory power lies with the Board, not Ahpra, and one anonymous doctor said that the Board was negligent in renewing its contract with Ahpra, knowing the level of incompetence of Ahpra officials. She added that perhaps the Board liked this arrangement, as most complaints are deflected away from the Board and directed against Ahpra.
The TGA was also accused of hiding vaccine side effects like myocarditis from the public, making people doubt its authenticity. They also allegedly concealed the death of several previously healthy children from vaccine side effects, as they were afraid it would promote vaccine hesitancy.
To curb corruption among regulatory bodies like the TGA, the Australian government introduced the National Anti-corruption Commission (NACC) in July 2023. Ahpra and the Medical Board are not answerable to either the state, federal parliament or the NACC. Many doctors believe they should be accountable.
Do doctors need a law degree for protection?
During TrialSite's conversation with the sources, they hinted that the insurance company lawyers meant to protect doctors were actually supporting the medical council and Ahpra. If this is true, doctors may need to become experts in law to make the right choices when getting advice from lawyers, especially if they end up in such a situation.
When TrialSite inquired if the medical board's actions would make doctors anxious about reporting adverse effects and other related matters, they firmly responded that the board's actions had caused underreporting. Apparently, doctors were afraid of saying or doing anything that would earn them a suspension.
Even so, some doctors have challenged the system and are legally smart about it. An example is Dr. William Bay, an Australian doctor in Queensland and the leader of the Queensland People’s Protest (QPP). TrialSite has previously reported on Dr. Bay's protests against the COVID-19 vaccines in Australia. He had previously received a suspension for disrupting an Australian Medical Association conference. He then took legal action against the medical board and Ahpra, aiming to have the suspension revoked. At the time of authoring this article, Dr. Bay was still waiting for the final verdict from the Court.
Dr. Gary Fettke, an orthopedic surgeon, also faced a four-and-a-half-year legal case initiated by Ahpra starting in 2014 for giving nutritional and weight loss advice to his patients. The case was challenged along legal and procedural grounds, and then, using the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman’s Intervention (NHPO), was reviewed independently.
Speaking to TrialSite, Fettke said, “Nonetheless, we had to become 'expert' in the National Law, as the Indemnifiers are not supportive of preserving your practicing rights, nor reputation.” Additionally, he added that because these insurance company lawyers were mainly responsible for financial liability, they found it safer and cheaper to side with Ahpra.
These are examples of people who may have understood their legal rights as doctors.
Final thoughts
To treat patients in the best way possible, doctors in Australia may need to learn to navigate the legal system strategically. While this may not apply universally, Ahpra's survey indicates decreased confidence in the system among practitioners. So, beyond relying solely on medical defense insurance providers in Australia, doctors may require additional safeguards to function effectively within the healthcare system. Of course, from another perspective—the top down, government and medical establishment’s point of view doctors should simply line up and follow the guidance.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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