Dr William Bay wins challenge after medical licence suspended over anti-vax comments

An anti-vax doctor whose professional licence was suspended more than two years ago has won his legal challenge against the medical industry regulators.

Dr William Bay leaves the Supreme Court in Brisbane. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass

An anti-vax doctor whose professional licence was suspended more than two years ago, has won his legal challenge against the medical industry regulators.

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Medical Board of Australia and Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s “very serious allegation” that the GP’s actions “contravened relevant legislation” appeared to have been “entirely unfounded”.

Dr William Bay, who has been registered as a GP since January 2016, has been unable to practise as a medical doctor since his licence was suspended on August 17, 2022.

According to the Supreme Court judgment, the suspension stemmed from AHPRA receiving five notifications about three separate incidents.

On June 12, 2022, a video of Dr Bay claiming that Covid-19 vaccines had caused harm was published on the Facebook page for the political organisation, Queensland Peoples’ Protest.

Three days later, Dr Bay appeared in a Facebook livestream claiming that Covid-19 vaccination and his compliance as a GP had killed a patient and caused harm to patients.

The livestream was recorded at a meeting for Queensland Peoples’ Protest, but it was published on the Facebook page for the Informed Medical Options Party.

William Bay with supporters outside court on Friday. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass

On July 29, 2022, Dr Bay was accused of “aggressively interrupting” the AMA National Conference in Sydney, attended by 400 doctors.

Dr Bay yelled at attendees to “stop forcing these vaccines on the people of Australia who are getting killed by them”, according to court decision documents.

He further yelled at the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly calling him “a liar” and accusing him of “gaslighting”.

He also yelled, what the Australian Medical Association described as, “false” claims such as “natural immunity has been proven to give 97.3 per cent immunity for life against all variants”.

When the Medical Board of Australia issued Dr Bay with a show cause notice, his response included that “his political commentary is in the public interest” and “does not pose a serious risk to the community”.

In November 2022, the suspended GP applied for a Supreme Court review of the Medical Board’s conduct, particularly its decision to suspend his registration and investigate him.

On the final day of a three-day hearing in October 2024, the Medical Board and AHPRA tendered what Justice Thomas Bradley described as “critical evidence” which revealed “the errors in their suspension decision”.

“An earlier examination of the five notifications, the agenda paper and the decisions and actions documents would have revealed that the Board had acted beyond the power conferred on it by Parliament,” Justice Bradley wrote in his decision released on Friday.

“The Board and AHPRA had the means to identify and understand that the suspension decision could be set aside.

“Rather than reveal or act on this information, they sought to prevent Dr Bay from having his application for review heard.”

In handing down his decision, Justice Bradley emphasised that it should not be misinterpreted as the Supreme Court entering into the vaccine debate.

“The Court is concerned only with whether the decision or the conduct was free from an error,” he said.

Justice Bradley concluded that the Medical Board’s regulatory role did not “include protection of government and regulatory agencies from political criticism”.

“None of these [legislative] measures [related to Covid-19 vaccines] authorised the [Medical] Board to abrogate the right of persons, such as Dr Bay, to a hearing before an apparently unbiased tribunal,” he ruled.

The Medical Board conceded that the Supreme Court could rule it had denied Dr Bay procedural fairness by failing to put to him an allegation that he had practised unlawfully.

“[Legal] counsel for the [Medical] Board and AHPRA were unable to identify any basis for the Board’s assumption (or apparent finding) that Dr Bay had contravened relevant legislation,” Justice Bradley wrote in his judgment.

“Nothing in the first three notifications before the Board alleged or justified this conclusion. This very serious allegation by the Board appears to have been entirely unfounded.

“Neither in the show cause letter nor since did the Board identify the relevant legislation or guidelines it asserted Dr Bay had contravened.

“The Board and AHPRA were similarly unable to substantiate the assumption or apparent finding that Dr Bay had breached a Code of Conduct.”

The Supreme Court ordered that Dr Bay’s registration suspension be set aside, as well as the decisions to investigate him and refer the matters to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal also be set aside.

Justice Bradley also ordered that the Medical Board and AHPRA must pay Dr Bay’s costs associated with the Supreme Court proceeding.