Dr Kerryn Phelps was elected as President of the Australian Medical Association on May 28, last year.
Between May 24 and June 6 this year, the Minister for Health Michael Wooldridge, made several statements which were reported on ABC Radio and various newspapers over whether certain drugs are being over prescribed , the extent to which the public should subsidise those drugs, and other medical matters.
On one occasion he said, “The majority of medical opinion is not with Dr Phelps, whose only qualification is in the media, not in any sort of specialist medical area. She is wrong on this.”
The radio interviewer pointed out that Dr Phelps was a qualified doctor, and Dr Wooldridge agreed. But he added that Dr Phelps disagrees with an independent scientific expert committee and “she is spreading dangerous information that will worry people unnecessarily and she should be condemned for it.”
After those statements were made, Dr Phelps continued in her position as President of the Australian Medical Association for all the world to see. Her certificate of graduation from the University of Sydney medical school is obvious verification of the statement made on the AMA is internet site and inferred on all AMA public statements that Dr Phelps is indeed a qualified medical practitioner as well as being a media medical personality.
Dr Wooldridge and the AMA are in a spat over essentially a matter of public policy. In their spat, Dr Wooldridge has been fairly vigorous in his attack on the AMA and of Dr Phelps herself. Yes, he did attack Dr Phelps’s qualification to comment on the prescription issue and pitted that against the qualifications of the expert committee. Yes, it was inaccurate of him to suggest that Dr Phelps had no medical qualifications, when he should have questioned only the level of her (ital) specialist (ital) qualifications against those of the committee. Yes, there are a long list of other vigorous attacks. But really do we need a court case over all this?
The only thing a court case is likely to show is that Dr Wooldridge goes over the top sometimes, that Dr Phelps is being a bit precious and that the defamation law is silly.
Whatever her exact legal rights, Dr Phelps should realise that in public life you sometimes have to cop a bit of flak, however unjustified.
The imputations drafted by the lawyers a have an air of unreality about them. One imputation filed in the ACT Supreme Court says Dr Wooldridge suggested that Dr Phelps was “reasonably suspected of being a fraud in holding herself out to be a medical practitioner.”
Now surely if Dr Phelps was fraudulently holding herself out to be a medical practitioner, the AMA would have booted her out, but they haven’t. Someone would have complained to the medical practitioners board, but no one has. However, the defamation law doesn’t deal in the obvious and the practical, it deals in technicalities. It isolates the words and uses legal tests as to whether they are actionable – unrelated to how the public really thinks.
A couple of days before the details of this defamation action were published, The Canberra Times reported that the ACT Supreme Court’s ability to keep up with the number of serious criminal cases is deteriorating. In 1996-97 the Supreme Court finalised 58 per cent of its outstanding cases. The following year it was 54 per cent and the year after that 47 per cent.
The people of the ACT should be asking why should their Supreme Court be wasting its precious resources on a childish spat the merits of which are fairly obvious to the public. Dr Wooldridge went over the top and should say sorry. The fact he does not should not be the grounds for legal action which will result in money being paid over. The fact he will not apologise for his error, despite the intervention of the Prime Minister, shows how childish he is. The fact that Dr Phelps wants to engage lawyers and waste time in what will inevitably be a very drawn-out case indicates a very thin skin and a lack of capacity to stay focused on what should be her main game – – the representation of doctors. The case can only be a distraction, even allowing for Dr Phelps’s position that she is somehow taking it on behalf of all general practitioners as a stand of principle against a Health Minister. Her GPs have already backed her publicly, so this is hardly necessary. And at the underlying point of contention – – whether Dr Phelps has medical qualifications – – is obvious. She has. So the whole case is just a ridiculous and a waste of the court’s time.
The 18th century defamation law should be brought into line with this age of information and opinion bombardment. People like Dr Wooldridge and Dr Phelps have plenty of opportunity to put their positions to the public. Defamation law should be restricted to serious allegations of criminal conduct and not concern itself with imputations about professional capacity. The reason for this is obvious. If someone makes an imputation of incompetence or unfitness for holding a job or professional position, the fact that the person retains the job or there is no inquiry by the professional body indicates that there is no substance to the imputation.
The courts have far more important things to do than mull over who said what and what did it all mean and how many pots of money should be paid by one party to another party because of what was said. There are people with personal physical injuries incurred on the roads and at work who need access to the courts. There are criminal cases awaiting prosecution with people presumed innocent in custody. There are criminal cases where people are on bail who will ultimately be found guilty and should have been put away a lot sooner.
The judicial worksheet should be full of these cases. People arguing over a few insults should grow up.