Opinion: Premier risks citizens’ revolt as human rights trampled

A Queensland Health nurse threatened with the sack for attending a rally is only the latest example of our human rights being trampled, writes Des Houghton.

A Sunshine Coast nurse has been accused of professional misconduct and threatened with the sack – simply for attending a local rally.

Shane Lawrence, 68, a kidney transplant recipient, has been warned he may have his registration suspended or cancelled by Ahpra, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, after a complaint from Queensland’s Office of the Health Ombudsman.

Lawrence told me he was shell-shocked after receiving a letter that read: “(This) notification raised allegations about your conduct in relation to you allegedly having attended a protest rally in opposition to the government response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It is alleged you gave a speech at the rally and made false and misleading statements about Covid-19 pandemic, relating to vaccinations against the disease.”

However Lawrence did not speak at the rally at La Balsa Park, Mooloolah, on November 28. A video recording of the event proves that.

Lawrence and 400 others went to hear politicians from three different political parties speak.

How dare a secretive government agency attempt to stop anyone attending a lawful public rally – whether they speak or not?

“It’s absolute insanity,” Lawrence told me. I agree.

The recent protest in La Balsa Park, Mooloolah. Picture: Patrick Woods

In my opinion the action against him was an egregious attack on the human rights of all of us.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison echoed similar sentiments in a speech at the Sydney Institute last week when he warned of the “seemingly unstoppable growth of the state”.

The “left of politics” wants to use pandemic power as a “pretext for a more expansive government role and reach into society – across economic, social and cultural domains”, he said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been warned. We have tolerated temporary incursions on our liberties by the state because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But don’t push it, Premier, unless you want riots on the streets.

ScoMo was on the money when he said Australians liked “limited government” and “an enabling partner, not a meddling busybody overseer”.

Lawrence said he was flabbergasted by his referral to the Big Brother health watchdog.

“My democratic rights have been trampled,” he said.

“I couldn’t believe it. It’s so insulting.”

He went as a private citizen and did not wear any clothing with the QH, Queensland Health logo.

This was apparently significant, he said, because it means the regulators can’t accuse him of pretending to represent Queensland Health, his employer.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk must tread carefully as frustration grows over curtailed rights. Picture: Dan Peled/Getty Images

Three politicians from different political parties addressed the rally, also attended by local councillors: former premier Campbell Newman from the Liberal Democrats, LNP senator Gerard Rennick and One National leader Pauline Hanson.

Newman attended in person, while the speeches from senators Rennick and Hanson were delivered over loudspeakers in telephone hook-ups.

The event was organised by former LNP cabinet minister Steve Dickson, who told me he counted Lawrence as a friend.

And, yes, the event spontaneously became a kind of “freedom rally”, he said, with speakers covering a range of topics and some challenging government policies on mandatory vaccinations and others complaining of the impracticality of turning small business people into Covid police.

Yet organisers say these are not anti-vaxxer events. Most in attendance are vaxxed. They are libertarians, unionists left and right, carrot-munching Green socialists, conservatives and crypto-fascists activists with one thing in common: They wont be pushed around.

A similar rally at Toowoomba attracted 1600. More than 1000 turned out to one in Warwick. Yes, 1000 in Warwick. That’s extraordinary.

If Palaszczuk wants to know who inspired these popular uprisings, she should look in the mirror.

Nurse Shane Lawrence has been threatened with the sack.

Resentment is growing against lockdowns, mandates and the rules demanding small business people become vax passport enforcers.

Our basic liberties are imperilled.

To make it worse, governments of all colours have given agencies like Ahpra and the Office of the Independent Assessor unfettered powers.

Australians under investigation by Ahpra and the OIA are in revolt against faceless bureaucrats who can meddle in their personal and professional lives.

Lawrence is demanding the names of his accusers.

He says he will not even be told the names of the “judges and jurors” who will meet to make findings that may destroy his career _ and his life.

He said he would seek help from the Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland. Here I declare I occasionally do freelance assignments for that union.

The notification of the action against Lawrence came in a letter in which the authors did not have the courage to put their names.

It was signed by the “Referrals team, Office of the Health Ombudsman”.

The complaint was emailed to him by Susan Mays, a health services HR adviser who told Lawrence she was writing on behalf of the “delegate” Colin Anderson, executive director of people and culture at Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service.

The OHO is the single point of contact for all health complaints or notifications against registered health practitioners in Queensland. The OHO and Ahpra work together to respond to complaints about the conduct and performance of clinicians.

Lawrence deserves an apology. The charges against him must be withdrawn.

‘DON’T CALL ME AN ANTI-VAXXER’

The man at the centre of the La Balsa Park controversy has not been vaccinated against Covid-19, but bristles at my suggestion he is an anti-vaxxer.

“I’ve had every vaccination going except one,” he said.

Indeed, as a nurse he has vaccinated people against Covid-19 at Nambour Hospital. He has also taken swabs and worked as a contract tracer.

However, he has not had the Covid-19 vaccination because he was warned there may be unknown immuno side effects to his kidney transplant.

He is seeking an exemption.

Lawrence lost a kidney at the age of nine and had a near-death experience after being bitten by a redback spider in 2007.

Then he suffered chronic kidney failure and was kept alive on dialysis until he received an organ transplant in 2010.

Lawrence was born in Dirranbandi 587km west of Brisbane and educated at Marist College, Rosalie, and Toowong High School. He has worked in the UK and New Zealand and for a decade was a rep for the Australian Workers’ Union. He has never joined a political party. He worked as a car spray painter and wardsman before studying nursing.

The transplant ordeal was his second brush with death.

He escaped serious injury after being caught near the epicentre of the Christchurch earthquake in 2011.

“The world came tumbling down. I was very frightened,” he said.

But somehow, the quake gave him strength.

“I no longer fear anything,” he said.

Des Houghton is an independent media consultant and a former editor of The Courier-Mail, Sunday Mail, Sunday Sun and Gold Coast Sun