As I reported recently, an Australian GP recently had his medical career summarily ended solely for the ‘crime’ of posting satirical memes and being a Christian. Dr Jereth Kok was never once the subject of a single patient complaint, nor a single allegation of medical malpractice.
The only thing he was ‘guilty’ of was wrongthink.
And the lengths the inquisitors went to persecute him were both shocking and ominous.
What began as anonymous complaints triggered a years-long, taxpayer-funded witch hunt to comb through over a decade of his online religious and political commentary, ultimately branding him “unfit to practise” for holding and sharing Christian beliefs.
In a foretaste of what all of us can expect under the Albanese government’s looming censorship regime, Kok was subjected to a secretive campaign that would make the Stasi or the KGB blink.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal may have only just handed down its ruling against Dr Jereth Kok, but behind the scenes, the witch hunt began years ago. And now, following eight items of correspondence to and from AHPRA to other parties (that have been secured by Nation First), we can see the full scale of the ideological operation to break a Christian GP for the crime of expressing his beliefs online. (For legal reasons, we cannot show you the documents as they contain names and details of people who personally work for the agencies and corporations involved in this witch hunt.)
First the anonymous snitching, then the full weight of the secret policing machinery.
On 5 August 2019, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) sent a formal demand to Facebook’s Sydney office. The letter, marked Private and Confidential, required Facebook to produce:
• Every post and comment ever made by Dr Kok
• Comments made under his posts by other users
• Deleted and archived content
• Evidence of any community standards violations
• Details of any warnings or bans
• The dates, times, and content of every interaction
This wasn’t a narrow review. It was a blanket data trawl from 2014 to 2019, a five-year dragnet to scrutinise his private thoughts, satire, and Christian commentary.
And this was all done without a single complaint from a patient. Not one.
To their credit, Facebook refused to comply. Its legal team, at White & Case LLP, essentially told the bureaucratic inquisitors to shove it.
In a strongly worded letter dated 16 August 2019, they informed AHPRA that Facebook’s position was that:
• It does not fall under Australian jurisdiction
• AHPRA’s “Notice to Produce” had no legal force internationally
• They could not and would not release user data without a valid court order or subpoena
• They suggested AHPRA seek the data directly from Dr Kok instead
So not even Facebook, hardly a haven of conservative sympathy, would play along.
Even Big Tech saw this for what it was: government overreach on a global scale.
But never underestimate a government-funded Gestapo bureaucracy. Stymied legally, AHPRA went nuclear.
They hired Ferrier Hodgson, a private forensic firm, and commissioned them to scour not only Facebook, but also websites and blogs, where Dr Kok had posted comments over the years. The result:
• 239 web pages crawled
• 122 pages identified with Kok’s name
• Sophisticated “scrolling” software deployed to uncover hidden and de-ranked comments
• Facebook’s own privacy settings bypassed using test accounts
• A full quote for this particular item of work: one email dated 5 June 2019 cites an estimate $4,800 to $6,000 in taxpayer funds […]
Let’s be clear. This level of scrutiny is usually reserved for criminal probes.
So, this out-of-control government agency trawled through years of one man’s personal and political life, not as a matter of medical oversight, but solely because some anonymous snitch didn’t like something he posted on Facebook.
They didn’t just want to know what Dr Kok had said. They wanted to know everywhere he’d said it, everyone he’d said it to, and everything anyone said in response.
AHPRA specifically targeted comments made by Dr Kok on Bill Muehlenberg’s website and Facebook page.
So much for freedom of association, then.
But why Bill Muehlenberg? After all, Muehlenberg has never been charged with any wrongdoing, nor associated with violent extremists, or been associated with terror activity. He is a respected lecturer in ethics and theology and a prolific author whose work has frequently been published in the world’s oldest surviving magazine, the Spectator.
Muehlenberg, like Dr Kok, is a Christian – worse, a conservative Christian, rather than the sort of simpering ‘progressive’ Christian apt to don a rainbow cassock and prattle nonsense about ‘we are all Muslim!’ You or I personally may not agree with all he says, but he’s hardly an extremist.
But he is an opponent of both abortion and gender ideology.
Is it clear, now?
They weren’t protecting patients. They were punishing dissent.
The precedent is chilling.
If this can happen to Dr Kok, it can happen to any Christian, any conservative, any professional who holds a licence or registration with a government body.
And it will, you can bet your life on that.
