The suspension of Melbourne GP Dr Jereth Kok by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) stands as a warning to the entire medical profession. For more than six years, Dr Kok has been barred from practising medicine – not for any clinical misconduct, not for harming a patient, but for a series of predominantly private online posts made years ago, many before any formal complaint was even lodged.
There were no patient complaints. His clinical record was unblemished. He offered to remove the posts. Yet he was suspended in 2019, based on complaints from anonymous sources. He was subjected to a regulatory and legal process so slow and punitive it has destroyed his medical career.
The focus of this case should not be what Dr Kok said – it should be how the regulator and tribunal system operated against him, and what that says about the broader treatment of health professionals in Australia.
Guilty Without Harm
In mid-2025, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) delivered a 186-page judgment, finding Dr Kok guilty on approximately two-thirds of the allegations. But the flaws in the decision are hard to ignore. The tribunal’s reasoning sidelines Australia’s implied constitutional freedom of political and religious expression and the Victorian Charter. Instead, it applies an unbending standard of ‘professional conduct’ disconnected from context or proportionality – overriding basic civil liberties in the name of regulatory conformity.
This entire saga was triggered by AHPRA, which reportedly monitored Dr Kok’s online activity before the complaints were even filed. Once the case began, it followed a depressingly familiar pattern: a preventive suspension with no clinical justification, dragged out over years, with no clear pathway to resolution.
Who Is the Regulator Protecting?
The profession itself is funding this regime. Doctors pay mandatory registration fees that are being used by AHPRA to wage legal battles against members of their own profession. A lot of money has likely been spent on litigation regarding a GP with no clinical complaints, in pursuit of policing private speech.
And if AHPRA exhausts its legal budget? They have the option to increase registration fees. There is limited accountability, insufficient financial transparency, and no real public audit of how these funds are spent – or wasted.
Meanwhile, the emotional toll of these investigations is devastating. Many health professionals report severe mental distress, and some have taken their own lives under the pressure of prolonged, dehumanising scrutiny. That Dr Kok has survived this ordeal and rebuilt a career outside of medicine is a remarkable testament to his resilience. Many others, faced with the same circumstances, might not have made it.
Time to Stand Up
This is not just Dr Kok’s fight – it is the professions. If the medical community remains silent while regulators punish dissent, suppress lawful opinion, and operate without transparency or accountability, it opens the door to ideological enforcement masquerading as public safety.
There must be urgent reform. That includes:
- Independent oversight of AHPRA and medical tribunals
- Clear timelines for investigations and decisions
- Abolition of anonymous ideological complaints without clinical basis
- Limits on the regulator’s power to initiate expensive litigation
- Protection of lawful speech, especially in private or non-clinical settings
- Financial transparency in the use of registration fees
Support systems for practitioners under investigation
The Stakes Are High
The soul of the profession – its ability to reason, dissent, question, and speak freely – is now under threat. We cannot let what happened to Dr Kok happen again. It is time for doctors, across all specialties, to speak with one voice:
Enough.
Dr Duncan Syme Australian Medical Professional Society president
