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The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) recently found the Christian GP Dr Jereth Kok guilty of professional misconduct. Significantly, Dr Kok’s misdemeanours had nothing to do with medical misconduct. Instead, it was for expressing personal viewpoints outside of what VCAT adjudicated is the Overton Window.

What exactly did Dr Kok’s misconduct involve? According to the Human Rights Law Alliance, which represented him,

“Over a 12-year period, Dr Kok shared posts critical of abortion, gender ideology, and COVID-19 policies… VCAT found that Dr Kok’s posts, among other things, were “disrespectful” and “derogatory”, not sufficiently balanced or unbiased, and legitimised Covid vaccine hesitancy.”

Yes, you read that right, over a period of TWELVE YEARS!

Some of the impugned posts are so old that Dr Kok was not even in breach of any agreed social media policy, since it did not exist at the time.

Australian doctor found guilty of professional misconduct for sharing Babylon Bee jokeshttps://t.co/9fSvPLCJQx

— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) July 28, 2025

AHPRA created its first social media policy in March 2014. Subsequently, in November 2019 — after Dr Kok had already been suspended (in August 2019) — it was updated to extend its application to the very kinds of posts that Dr Kok made. And even the updated policy is framed as “guidance” and not “law.”

But here’s the point: the rules are sufficiently open to interpretation that it was legally disputable whether he even breached them.

Not even George Orwell, in his dystopian classic 1984, could have envisioned such a scenario. Orwell thought that history would be reinterpreted, with the truth of what happened literally consigned to a ‘memory hole’. In 2025 Victoria, though, the internet has provided a permanent record of one’s ‘thought crimes’.

Met a thought criminal at the @aus4science conference today 👀@DrTC_au pic.twitter.com/RZd1YEjliH

— Rebekah Barnett (@dystopian_DU) November 16, 2024

Jereth Kok Convicted of ‘Thought Crimes’

At this point, you might be wondering, like me, just exactly what conservative social media posts — i.e. Orwellian ‘thought crimes’ — the good doctor published? While some of his posts were more spicy than others, let me give four examples of his ‘guilt’.

First, he had the temerity to re-post something from child rights advocate Katy Faust on the benefits of children being raised by a father and a mother.

I’m completely at a loss as to what was disrespectful about this post, except maybe for the fact that the LGBTIQ people were not provided with a safe place where they could be celebrated and affirmed.

Second, Dr Kok decided to get even more edgy and criticise the COVID-era narrative that there would be better health outcomes if everyone was socially isolated and chose to be imprisoned in their homes.

Just for clarity, the above picture is from the fictional movie Gladiator, and so any likeness or resemblance to the people employed at AHPRA is purely coincidental. But if being critical of COVID lockdowns is so controversial then I guess anyone who shares the former deputy Prime Minister of Australia John Anderson’s videos on this subject might also lose their jobs as well.

Third, Dr Kok shared a post by the popular American satire site The Babylon Bee — which has 1.8 million followers on Facebook — involving the incorrect use of pronouns as a form of tactical warfare. His post was so far reaching in its offensiveness that it received a measly two emoji response — one ‘laughing’ and one ‘love’.

Does this mean that everyone who follows and re-posts material from The Babylon Bee is also guilty of professional misconduct? Because that’s opening up a pandora’s box of problems if ever there was one!

Finally, all the way back in 2014, Dr Kok made a respectful post comparing the religion of Islam to Christianity, the point in question being why we don’t see followers of Jesus perpetrating more acts of violence.

As you can see above, Dr Kok went the “full Folau” by quoting directly from the Bible. (Just to clarify, Izzy Folau merely paraphrased 1 Corinthians 6:9 in the social media post which led to his contract being revoked). Just in case you missed it though, Dr Kok quoted the apostle Paul as saying in Romans 12:17–21:

¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.

¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my dear friends,

but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written:

“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

²⁰ On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Just precisely where is the ‘hate speech’ is that? Surely, it is instructing the polar opposite situation to occur?

The Chilling Effect

Central to this whole issue is the suppression of freedom of speech as well as freedom of religion. This is because the strategy of organisations such as VCAT is to isolate and punish one individual so that fifteen others will think twice about speaking up.

All of which is to say, maybe VCAT should consider changing their name to ‘The Ministry of Truth’ in keeping with their gatekeeping role regarding freedom of speech and associated thought crimes of “doublespeak”. And yet, sadly, even now we probably not have reached peak Orwell.

That is, not until we also see the Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty and Ministry of Love also developed. But it’s only a matter of time. For such is the state of the government in Oceania — I mean, Victoria.

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Image via Facebook/Jereth Kok.