GP under fire for retweeting political candidate

A TOOWOOMBA GP is allegedly under investigation by Australia’s peak health agency for reposting anti-transgender material on social media network Twitter.

Doctor David van Gend is alleged to have committed discriminatory conduct in a complaint made to the Australian Health Practitioner and Regulation Agency when he reposted two tweets from Australian Conservatives spokesman Lyle Shelton, documents published in the Daily Telegraph revealed.

One tweet was a selfie of Mr Shelton and author Dr Ryan T Anderson, who wrote an antitransgender book called When Harry became Sally.

The other retweet was linked to a Daily Telegraph article titled SSM has led exactly where we warned it would.

Lyle Shelton, also a friend of Dr van Gend, said the doctor was currently in the process of writing a formal response to the allegations.

“It is much easier to shut people up than to have a proper discussion but sadly free speech is not the way of modern politically correct elites,” Mr Shelton said.

Dr van Gend is an active critic of the Queensland Government’s abortion law reform, same sex marriage and gender issues and runs a blog where he discusses his thoughts on these issues.

An AHPRA spokesperson said they could not comment on the case.

“Privacy provisions in the national law prevent us from commenting on any information about health practitioners that is not already available in a public forum.” they said.

“Speaking in general terms, anyone can make a notification to AHPRA about the health, performance or conduct of registered practitioners.

“The fact that a notification has been made... does not automatically affect a practitioner’s ability to practise.”