“Every joke is a tiny revolution,” as George Orwell said. Because “whatever destroys dignity, and brings down the mighty from their seats, preferably with a bump, is funny”. Laugh at power and you undermine its self-assumed prestige.
Authoritarian regimes cannot, will not, tolerate laughter. Especially at their own expense. Whatever is funny, threatens the mighty. It’s why modern ‘comedy’ is so anodyne. It’s why the Nazis and communists punished mockery.
And it’s why the Australian medical establishment has banned a Victorian GP from practising.
GP Dr Jereth Kok, who has spent almost six years suspended under emergency powers, has been found guilty of professional misconduct over 54 online posts.
What were these posts, you ask? Did he, like certain Sydney nurses, brag about killing Jews?
No, he posted jokes. Many of them from satire site the Babylon Bee.
In this interview we explored the offences alleged by AHPRA, using AHPRA screenshots of Dr Kok’s social media posts. Most of them are inarguably absurd, satire, or vanilla statements and the remaining are expositions of his Christian views.
For these tiny revolutions, his career has been destroyed.
For 4 years Dr Jereth Kok has been suspended from practising medicine for posting memes, satire, and other Christian religious opinions on social media. Many of these posts centred around transgenderism, sexuality and abortion.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) used an emergency mechanism reserved for use on dangerous doctors who represent a risk to ‘the public interest’.
Now, bear in mind that this is solely on the basis of, not clinical practice, but private social media activity and anonymous snitches.
So much for the “long-established principle of the English common law” of the right of an accused to confront his accusers. Supposedly in contrast to “inquisitorial procedures practised on the continent of Europe, where evidence was received under a ‘veil of secrecy’”.
AHPRA have disclosed that their investigation began when they received 2 anonymous complaints about Dr Jereth Kok’s social media posts, and that those two complainants have never been his patients.
Make no mistake, this man lost his career solely for wrongthink.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has found Christian GP and HRLA client Dr Jereth Kok guilty of professional misconduct – not for any clinical failing, but for expressing his deeply held views on social media.
Compare the inquisitorial zeal of these HR Karens to silence and un-person a Christian doctor, with their foot-dragging and nothing-to-see-here wilful blindness, to the vicious anti-Semitism from Muslim health professionals.
When midwife Sharon Stoliar raised the alarm about anti-Semitism rampant in the nursing and midwife professions, the only person investigated by AHPRA was her. Stoliar had “formal corrective comments” made against her registration (all without her knowledge): the anti-Semites escaped punishment.
When a high-profile obstetrician made what AHPRA conceded were racist comments to Stoliar – not on social media, but in the course of clinical practice – the obstetrician avoided any punishment.
A Melbourne doctor who openly praised Hamas and exhorted other Muslims to emulate the October 7 attacks was simply allowed to shift hospitals.
But when a doctor expresses orthodox Christian views and shares humorous memes?
