Brandon Raynor versus the Health Ombudsman
1 As a citizen of Australia, I expect government organizations, to be competent, careful, and unbiased in any dealings with people under their jurisdiction. This is especially true of an organization investigating the professional behaviour of people such as the Office of the Health Ombudsman.
2 The office of the health ombudsman acknowledges that investigations pursued by their office can put people being investigated under strong risk for mental health problems. On their page https://www.oho.qld.gov.au/for-providers/what-happens- when-the-oho-receives-a-complaint the organization acknowledges the tremendous stress place up a person being investigated and lists associations to contact to deal with suicidal thoughts etc. According to the Australian Medical Association on page 9 of https://qld.ama.com.au/sites/default/files/QLD/PDFs/OHO%20Issues%20Paper.pdf “A 1984 survey by Charles et al found that, after medico-legal proceedings, 96% of medical practitioners acknowledged an emotional reaction for at least a limited period of time, 39% experienced depression, including symptoms such as depressed mood, insomnia, loss of appetite and loss of energy, 20% experienced danger, accompanied by feelings such as frustration, inability to concentrate, irritability and insomnia, 16% described the onset or exacerbation of a previously diagnoses physical illness, 2% of medical practitioners engaged in excessive alcohol consumption, and 2% experienced feelings of suicidal ideation. Louise Nash et al found, similarly, that doctors who had experienced a medico-legal matter had significantly higher psychiatric morbidity than doctors who had never experienced a matter.36 It has also been noted that the very nature of a complaint, even vexatious or spurious matters, can dramatically and detrimentally change how medical practitioners interact with patients.”
3 This is the seriousness with which the Office of the Health Ombudsman on it’s own website acknowledges the serious implication of such an investigation and that the pen can be mightier than the sword in its effects on someone’s mental health because after all the power imbalance between the government of Queensland backed up by police, armies etc far outweighs the power that one citizen holds. Therefore, people can feel powerless etc against the powerful government organization that the OHO is and the backup of the Queensland police force to enforce their decisions.
4 Therefore, in matters such as these where people can feel powerless against this organization and the incredible damage that a false accusation that the OHO or its representatives can make against a defenceless citizen can make, there is an even greater responsibility for the OHO not to lie or make false claims about people either intentionally or through neglecting to be careful. They have the equivalent of a loaded gun, and anyone with such power should be responsible for the negligent or corrupt use of that power. A citizen in Australia has no right or ability to protect themselves against a tyrannical government and relies on the responsibility of the government and the Crown to exercise their power in a responsible, careful, and impartial way.
5 This has not been the case with the Office of the Health Ombudsman. They have neglected their duties to carefully check their Findings of Fact against me and have resorted to making up false findings of facts against me causing a huge amount of emotional distress to me.
6 It is the OHO’s responsibility to get findings of fact correct especially when the information is right there in front of them in their own submission, when they referenced my website.
7 There are no excuses for this that are in anyway valid. The OHO has the equivalent of a loaded gun and it was shot at me. It was the OHO’s responsibility to ensure that they checked their work before making a false accusation against me. This is a form of psychological abuse. Just because the government has done it against a citizen does not make it ok. It makes it far worse because of the power imbalance, especially in an organization investigating professional behaviour.
8 Then to have this organization “lose” my complaint against it shows a complete dereliction of their duty to investigate themselves. Again, whether through intention or negligence is not my problem. It is their responsibility to behave in professional manner in their dealings with citizens and the feeling that they give to a person who complains to them against their own dereliction of duty being ignored gives a citizen an even greater feeling of the abuse of power. This again is a form of assault on the mental health of that citizen, by an organization or people within that organization and is a misuse of government authority.
9 I believe that the QCAT dismissal of the seriousness of this complaint is just one government organization covering for another, as the ex- Attorney General Dean Wells states later in this submission. To not see that there was a cover up in losing my first complaint and then only answering my second complaint months later just before the court case shows a dereliction of duty in QCAT to properly investigate this gross dereliction of duty by the OHO. To accept that it was a “transcribing error” at face value shows the unwillingness of QCAT to be impartial.
10 No one today in any serious capacity would transcribe a written word. They would copy and paste it. Copying and pasting would obviously avoid such errors. If a government department, for a reason that goes against responsible thinking and procedures, should choose to transcribe a written word, it is their responsibility to ensure that their transcribing method is as free of errors as copying and pasting and checking your work.
11 This was an obvious cover up. There would have not even been a reason for the OHO to transcribe the original statement because it would not have been a legitimate finding of fact. So, the OHO explanation makes no sense that their error occurred during transcribing the statement from my website. This shows that they are covering up for something that is probably illegal or unethical that they do not want to admit to. That, in my opinion, is probably the real reason they lost my complaints.
12 The Australian Medical Association has called for a review of how the OHO conducts investigations but the OHO has refused to change, In the same report mentioned before on page 11 the AMA states that “ Suspension of Natural Justice and Procedural Fairness in Investigations Our members have repeatedly indicated that they have had negative experiences with the conduct of the OHO in how it undertakes investigations. An effective medical regulatory system must maintain procedural fairness to both complainant and the subject of the complaint. We believe that the measures outlined in this document, namely the establishment of health professional councils supported by legal practitioners, would help address these concerns and develop a culture that prominently places natural justice and procedural fairness in investigations. AMA Queensland strongly urges the Health Minister to engage a respected external group of experts to examine the investigatory culture of the Office of the Health Ombudsman. Such a review would not be unusual or inclement given the organisation has existed for only 18 months. This point in time would represent a prime opportunity to resolve any quirks or maladjustments before they become entrenched cultural issues. The experts should be commissioned to examine the adherence to principles of natural justice, the procedural fairness experienced by both the complainant and the subject of the complaint, and comparisons to other jurisdictions. The expert panel should also consider whether an alternate mechanism to QCAT for appeals against orders of the Health Ombudsman would be justified given the volume of matters before QCAT. With the report as a base, any deficiencies should be addressed and appropriate protocols authored by suitably experienced senior legal practitioners.”
13 They also state on page 3 On page 3 of this document “The OHO has, in our view, succumbed to the same inefficiencies and poor complaints management processes that drove the Government to replace the HQCC. ”
14 According to Dean Wells, the past Attorney General of Queensland, corruption remains rife in Queensland. https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2019/jul/03/thirty-years-after-the-fitzgerald-inquiry-corruption-remains-rife-in-queensland
15 “Dean Wells is particularly critical of the of the way the CCC operates based on what it calls “the devolution principle”, which means the vast majority of complaints about public sector agencies are ultimately handed back to those same agencies to investigate and act. “It’s not just Caesar judging Caesar, it’s Caesar judging Caesar very benignly,” he said.”
16 “Of course it’s not what [Fitzgerald] had in mind. Institutions change. You won’t find brown paper bags like in the old days of the Fitzgerald inquiry, but you’ll find quite a bit of people accommodating other people.”
17 “You need a Fitzgerald inquiry every generation. You need a Fitzgerald inquiry in every jurisdiction every 25 years. Society is dynamic. They change, they adapt. You need to change the antibiotic.”
18 I personally call for a Fitzgerald type enquiry into the corruption of the OHO that is being enabled by QCAT turning a blind eye and accommodating the Health Ombudsman and any of the corrupt employees of the Health Ombudsman.
19 According to https://theconversation.com/australia-is-out-of-the-top-ten-in-global-anti-corruption-rankings-why-153875, Australia has fallen 8 points in its corruption index.
20 It is precisely actions like this of the OHO in doing incompetent investigations into its own corruption that are making Australia being more corrupt. Loosing investigations then coming up with fake excuse for the corrupt activities such as the poorly thought out “transcription” excuse.
21 The OHO has displayed a gross dereliction of duty and QCAT has covered for them in a biased manner against me, as a powerless citizen being bullied in a Samson versus Goliath fight.
22 These are organizations that claim to be investigating the professional behaviour of other people and claim to be unbiased. This complete lack of fairness and government accountability has caused enormous psychological damage to me and has increased feelings that the government is engaged in an unlawful, unethical, immoral, unfair persecution of me for being a Naturopath and practitioner of Ayurveda and TCM. This goes against all intrinsic values of what it means to be Australian. It also violates internationally recognised human rights. The fact the OHO have said if I became a Medical Practitioner that I could then perform cervical manipulations, despite not getting any additional training in how to perform cervical manipulations show that this is indeed an attack on my profession, as well as me personally.
23 In the Australian values statement issued by the Federal government https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/support-subsite/files/life-in-australia/life-in-australia.pdf several of the values equated with being Australian have been violated.
24 Obviously, I have not been given a fair go. The power imbalance, the abuse of power and neglect of duty by the government organizations are so diametrically opposed to the Australian value of fair go due to the complete lack of fairness shown by the OHO and QCAT.
25 The organizations have also abused the respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual clause. By making false claims and doing completely incompetent investigations of those false claims you have violated my dignity as an Australian citizen.
26 The changing of the law to exclude my practices also violates the equality of opportunity for all section. You have supported the monopolisation of a technique by people such as medical practitioners despite them having no training in a procedure. This is not equal opportunity for all. It is a form of elitism that is contrary to Australian values.
27 It clearly states that Violence of any kind, including verbal and physical abuse, is illegal. Making a false finding of fact against someone is a form of verbal abuse and psychological and reputational violence. The Bible, which I swore upon during the proceedings, unlike the OHO and its witnesses, clearly states in the Ten Commandments that one should not bear false witness. Whether one believes the Bible or not is irrelevant because bearing false witness is universally recognized as morally wrong. Not only that but if someone had done it unintentionally, they would feel remorse and have prioritized dealing with the complaint rather than “lose the complaint”. Their lawyer at the time, Matthew Price, also seemed to for get that he promised to get back to me with a reason for them changing the statements that I made on my website, as he declined to accept my explanation that it was either gross incompetence and breach of professional standards or it was corruption by the equivalent of “planting evidence”. He promised to personally get back to me with a third explanation and he never did ether.
28 None of this shows an organisation committed to treating people fairly or in accordance with Australian values. I believe that I have been abused by the OHO and its staff and have not been treated fairly by my initial hearing in QCAT where this abuse and neglect was dismissed by the judicial officer as accepting the OHO explanation of it being “just a transcription error”. This error was the same excuse as someone pointing a gun at someone pulling the trigger and saying” I didn’t realise it was loaded because I neglected to check my work”. It would not stand up in any first world jurisdiction, except Queensland, to excuse such behaviour.
29 It is obvious that the first judicial member to hear my case was biased in accepting that it was a transcription error and that its “ok to make transcription errors”. “Just a transcription error” that just happened to completely change the meaning of my sentence and made me out to be a maverick person with no respect for the law. If I produced a written statement making a false claim against someone else, particularly a government employee to smear their character, I highly doubt that the government would accept my defence of “oops it was a transcription error”, when I changed someone that they had said in writing.
30 This shows the bias that QCAT holds against a citizen and in favour of an unprofessional government department. This is completely contrary to the values of being Australian and the impartial approach that QCAT is supposed to display, by pricing checks and balances on the abuse of power by the OHO Another Australian value that has been trampled on is “In Australia, individuals must respect the freedom and dignity of others, and their opinions and choices.” This ruling does not reflect the choices of my clients to receive cervical manipulations from me.
31 I call for a ministerial inquiry into the OHO and their incompetence which leads to abuse.
32 “With great power comes great responsibility” The power of the OHO and the Queensland and Australian governments are probably a million times or more powerful than I am. With this power comes a great responsibility to use this power in a fair and just manner.
33 When I brought up the issues that have been mentioned in QCAT the judicial member, McGill, shocked the room by stating that he did not see this as a personal attack upon me. He roughly stated that this was merely how the OHO operated and he had seen and heard of innumerable instances where the OHO acted in a way that was careless and irresponsible and through this had no regard for the impact that their irresponsibility had upon other citizens of Queensland.
34 While the intent of this may have been to make out that the false accusations made by the OHO against me were not personally motivated or indeed even intentionally done, the fact that the level of incompetent and irresponsible behaviour of the OHO, is so well known in other branches of the government is something that the health ombudsman himself or herself must take person responsibility for.
35 From what the judicial member and the AMA describes there has been a long-term history of systemic carelessness that has been going on for a long time and for which the OHO and the bodies such as the Ombudsman of Queensland and QCAT have not successfully instituted proper checks and balances on the irresponsible, uncaring, and abusive use of the power entrusted by the people of Queensland and the Queen herself, with the Health ombudsman and the officials that work for them.
36 This is like someone having a chainsaw and throwing it around carelessly when there are other people around, cutting several people seriously, and the officials responsible for the behaviors of their duties neglecting to make sure that that man will use the chainsaw properly, carefully, and responsibly. I also blame the anti-corruption bodies of Queensland as I have brought this up with them as well as making the PID statement to QCAT, the Ombudsman and the Health Ombudsman, as well as the Health Minister and the Premier. All these bodies have allowed this systemic abuse of power to occur within the OHO. What makes this matter far worse is that the OHO is the government body assigned to police and check that health practitioners are engaging in a professional manner in their practices. With great power should come more accountability for the use of that power. This is in accordance with the Australian values of “fair go”.
37 Abuse of government power and failure to investigate this abuse by losing complaints etc is 100% opposed to this Australian value and is opposed to common decency everywhere in the world. Perhaps government like the junta of Burma or Idi Amin in Africa would support these methods used by the OHO but the rest of the world would certainly consider them an abusive way to use the power entrusted in them. No one in a Commonwealth country or the United States would consider this to be a good practice of a country calling itself developed or first world.
38 How can a body that is riddled with incompetence, irresponsibility, who uses practices such as transcribing written words and not checking their work, instead of copying and pasting, be in a position of judging hard working health practitioners of Queensland who are following the law and helping people? This is hypocrisy at its highest level and the failure of the Health Ombudsman and the Queensland Ombudsman and QCAT and other government bodies to deal with this, I consider to be a neglectful use of the power entrusted to them.
39 The government has a responsibility to wield its power in a fair and just manner and it has failed to do so in this case. This is a violation of Act 27 of the Health Ombudsman’s Act which requires the Ombudsman to act in an impartial manner and in a manner that is in the public interest. It is not impartial nor is it in the public interest to act incompetently when quoting someone’s written word.
40 It should not be my responsibility to bring this to the government’s attention. As an Australian citizen I should expect that my government would behave in a professional and responsible manner. Especially a body that investigates professional behaviour. I have wasted a lot of time to make this point that seems to fall on deaf and uncaring ears. This has used a lot of my time to police the government, which should not be my responsibility.
41 The costs of my time associated with psychological damage and the time taken to seek therapy for this damage from the abuse due to systemic failure of the Health Ombudsman to act in a responsible manner
42 Here is the excuse given by the Health Ombudsman, Mr. Andrew Brown for the year long delay about my second complaint after the first was ignored. “It has recently been brought to my attention that you have not received a response in relation to your complaint of 2 May 2018. An investigation of your complaint was undertaken in June 2018 and a response prepared but it does not appear to have been sent due to an administrative oversight.”
43 Two administrative oversights about complaints about administrative “errors” is an unacceptable level of incompetence.
45 The National Law, in regard to cervical adjustments, was designed around protecting the economic and political and hierarchical issues of the 4 professions that were entitled to perform cervical adjustments. There was no mention of laws to protect the safety of the people of Queensland or Australia and no clauses that were designed to do that. Registration as a heath practitioner does not in any way ensure safety in a procedure that people are not trained in.
46 Just because a person is registered as a medical practitioner should not by and in of itself give them a license to fly a jumbo jet plane full of passengers. Training should be provided in being a pilot as well, years of experience as a pilot would make them a better pilot than a novice pilot, regardless of their medical degree. If safety was the priority, then protocols would have been established to ensure that the oligopoly members were sufficiently trained in how to do cervical adjustments safety.
47 It seems to be a particularly Australian point of view, that is entirely unsupported by facts or the professional opinions of overseas medical practitioners, that medical practitioners should be allowed to perform supposedly dangerous procedures without any requirement to be trained in those procedures, while disqualifying people like Naturopaths and myself and my students that are trained in the procedure.
48 This is supported by the email I was sent from Liam, a Catholic monk in Boston. I have attached the relevant parts here. “Dear Brandon, My grandfather used to tell me that there are three things everyone needs in life: a good doctor, a good accountant, and a good priest. Happily, my doctor is also a close friend. He’s a great person but one way to sour his mood quickly is to bring up health insurance companies and governmental bodies that regulate the medical profession. He reluctantly concedes that both are necessary but feels like they meddle needlessly quite often, creating rules and policies to justify their own existence rather than helping people. Sound familiar? Knowing how he feels, I mentioned your plight to him. I’m not sure if this idiom exists in Australia but he just shook his head and said, “Government running amok.” And he made a few points that I thought might interest you: As a physician, he would not give a patient a therapeutic massage, let alone a cervical adjustment. He said, “How much training do you have in massage?” I said, “Me? None.” His reply: “Exactly. We’re equally qualified then because we have the same training.” I replied that his knowledge of anatomy and the human body would be vastly superior to mine. He acknowledged that but said, “Any idiot can be taught very quickly how to identify a muscle spasm. It’s fairly obvious. That doesn’t mean that you or I can fix it or treat it with my hands.” He went onto say that he would prescribe a muscle relaxant in an extreme case AND a massage from a qualified professional. He spoke briefly about what he called “Eastern medicine” being practiced in places like India. He commented that he believes there is—and this is an exact quote—“a subtle but very real First World bigotry against a system of medicine that’s existed for thousands of years.” He said that we (meaning those of who are lucky to live where we live) would do better to adopt what they do in India or China. There both systems are equally valid and the individual—who, of course, knows his or her own body best—forms a partnership with the provider for wellness. He also said: “Hell, I’ve known Indian barbers who are more qualified to crack my neck than I am!” He made a point in saying that you shouldn’t take this personally, even if it feels personal. As he said, “The industry wants to protect itself. Exclusivity is a way to do that and regulations guarantee that exclusivity.” More directly: medical school is expensive and arduous. Many doctors “instinctively believe that ALL medical decisions should be left to them” and sometimes view “cracking down on people (whom they label ‘pseudo- professionals’) as a way of protecting their investment.” Of course, not every doctor thinks that way. But he said his experience is that governmental bodies that regulate medical services “almost always do, even if they don’t admit it. They may not even be aware that they’re inherently biased.” Unfortunately for you, you’re on “the receiving end of the knout in this particular case.” However, you make a real difference by fighting the battle as a “dignified professional, even though their inclination is to believe you’re a witch- doctor.” He also admitted that, while freely telling me what he believes, he would “be hard pressed to say any of this publicly.” Doctors are always concerned about “liability” above all else and that’s why there’s “all too often an inhuman element to 21st century medicine.”
49 I think the point of view that physicians (or medical practitioners as they are called in Australia) should be able to perform medical procedures that they are not qualified in and could cause serious injury or death is hopefully unique to Australia.
50 I believe that physicians all over the rest of the world would consider this basic principle upon which this law was founded to be extremely dangerous. Especially considering that lack of appropriate training is considered to be the number one cause of medical malpractice in Australia leading to numerous deaths and injury. In the US up to 440,000 people a year die from medial errors. Articles about the number of medical malpractices are here https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors- third-leading-cause-of- death- in-america.html . Here is another article about Australia https://www.medneg.com.au/truth.html#:~:text=50%2C000 %20people%20suffer%20from%20permanent,hospitalised%2 0due%20to%20medication%20errors.
51 If the government is saying that instituting this law and the OHO enforcing it against me is about safety then the omission to look at the issue of medical practitioners being able to perform supposedly dangerous techniques that they are not trained is inexcusably neglectful and reaping of corruption.
52 Either the techniques are dangerous and so training should be provided or they are not and any medical practitioner can perform them without training. The government cannot have it both ways.
53 So that brings me to the point about the OHO hiring Mr. Purcell to be an expert witness. Mr. Purcell displayed prejudice on several occasions against alternative health professionals and even used the words “contemporary medicine” as if he had exclusive rights to the terms contemporary and medicine.
54 It would appear from my cross examinations that Mr. Purcell would not include people that practice Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and Raynor Naturopathic bodywork as practitioners of contemporary medicine.
55 Mr. Purcell claimed to be an expert in the matters of performing cervical adjustments due to his extensive but narrow training in the field of physiotherapy. This training would have qualified Mr. Purcell to have understood some of the terminology included in the National Law definition of a cervical adjustment that a lay person may have difficulty understanding.
56 This is precisely the main reason Mr. Purcell was hired because of his expertise in this matter.
57 Mr. Purcell was asked whether the techniques that I did fit into the National law definition of a cervical adjustment which says: “manipulation of the cervical spine” means moving the joints of the cervical spine beyond a person’s usual physiological range of motion using a high velocity, low amplitude thrust.”
58 Queensland has since moved away from the definition in order to justify keeping a Prohibition order out against me, despite me having extensive qualifications, training and experience in this field of medicine.
59 If a lay person looks carefully at the National law definition which was also law in Queensland at the time, we can clearly see that there are only two areas of that definition that would require an expert opinion.
60 The first is what does usual physiological range of motion mean and the second is what do the terms, velocity and even more so amplitude, as velocity is relatively self-explanatory, if ill defined.
61 I have never seen any other law talking about velocity being high or low without using a unit of measurement to distinguish between them. For example, speeding laws, which are the first to come mind regarding laws regulating the velocity of an action.
62 No speeding law in the world states high speed or low speed as a defining factor. Someone speeding is defined by a unit of measurement such as 60 kph. Anyone going above that is speeding or doing too high a velocity and anyone going under that is not speeding.
63 So, laws talking about velocity are usually clearly defined as to the unit of measurement about the velocity and the actual number of that measurement. The fact that this is one of the only laws in the world that I have ever seen anywhere in the world that uses terms like high or low to describe an action such as velocity or amplitude shows the complete lack of responsibility that lawmakers who passed this law took when, following the probable advice of oligopoly members to pass this law without practicing the proper discernment, that they should have practiced, to make a law clearly defined.
64 Nevertheless, the expert witness employed by the OHO, Physiotherapist Mr. Derek Purcell, in an affidavit stated that I was, to use his words, “most definitely” performing manipulations of the cervical spine according to the National Law.
65 Mr. Purcell was employed specifically to be an expert in clarifying the definitions in the National Law that a layperson would not understand and what low amplitude meant was one of the 3 areas of that law that he was specifically meant to give his opinion of.
66 If he had stated at the time that what I was doing was in fact high amplitude then the OHO should have had no basis in pursuing an Interim Prohibition Order against me, especially considering that no one has been injured by my techniques and I have 30 years more experience in doing them than an untrained medical practitioner, who the legislation allows to perform them, and who the OHO and QCAT have failed to address as being a potential safety concern.
67 Under cross examination Mr. Purcell admitted that what he had said on his affidavit was not actually the truth of the matter, as he had sworn under oath to provide as an expert witness, and that instead I was doing high amplitude adjustments.
68 He then stated that since these would fit under his idea of a so-called contemporary medicine definition of a cervical adjustment which differed from the Australian legal definition quite considerably, that the National law definition should not apply, and that his definition should take precedence.
69 QCAT and the OHO ignored the fact that he committed perjury in his affidavit despite the affidavit clearly having the National Law definition before him and him being asked to comment on that and not his own definition.
70 Mr Templeton, the lawyer for the OHO, quickly interrupted my cross examination that had exposed Mr Purcell’s admission that what I was doing didn’t fit the National Law definition despite his earlier affidavit to the contrary and quoted some matter of law that seem to be that it didn’t matter if I was breaking the law and nor did it matter that Mr Purcell had mislead the court, by stating that was I was doing was within the National Law definition when it clearly wasn’t.
71 The judicial member who heard the case seemed to allow this complete change of approach from the OHO from what I was doing to be illegal to Mr. Templeton and Mr. Purcell’s accusation that what I was doing was “unsafe” even if it was legal and therefore the law needed to be changed in Queensland to differ from the National Law and the rest of Australia.
72 This was done without consulting the legislature where proper submissions could be made by varies bodies such as myself and other Naturopaths, martial artists, massage therapists and yoga practitioners before any law was changed in Queensland to further discriminate against Naturopaths and other therapists while protecting the right for medical practitioners to practice without any training.
73 It is generally accepted that Laws should be changed by Parliament and not by bodies such as QCAT and the OHO that have shown an unwillingness to behave in a responsible manner in policing themselves, as mentioned previously.
74 The law was changed on the spot to justify the continuing human rights abuses that the Interim Prohibition Order had inflicted upon me.
75 Mr. Purcell, despite either not being enough of an expert to know more than a layperson about the differences between the ill-defined notions of high and low amplitude that the national law stated or being deceitful and criminally dishonest about what I was doing was not admonished by the court and was still paid for using taxpayers hard earned money and was still considered an expert witness.
76 The fact that he was still considered an expert witness when he either was clearly fakery posing as an expert witness while not knowing the difference between high and low amplitude or being deceptive about that shows more prejudice and hypocrisy by QCAT and the OHO.
77 I believe this neglect to be unfair and unjust and allowing a so-called expert witness to falsely describe that what I was doing violated the National Law, when it did not is a form of abuse of power and abuse generally as other restrictions such as making me take my YouTube videos down, which violated my human rights and those of my viewers were based on this fake expert opinion.
78 If he were truly an expert witness, he would clearly have known this and not used words like “most definitely” and then substituted a different definition other than the legal one that he was asked to use, shows that Mr. Purcell behaved in an unethical way by bearing false witness against me.
79 Mr. Purcell is a biased witness who had committed perjury in his attempt to discredit me.
80 By his use of the words “most definitely” I believe that Mr. Purcell has absolutely committed perjury and that Mr. Templeton attempted to whitewash this by attempting to change the conversation in our first QCAT hearing.
81 In regards to having only one so called expert witness to rely on, the Australia Medical Association in it’s OHO Issues Journal https://qld.ama.com.au/sites/default/files/QLD/PDFs/OHO%20Issues%20Paper.pdf on page 6 states that “While it is encouraging that the Health Ombudsman has access to, and utilises expert clinical advice, this is significantly different to the requirement to establish expert clinical advisory panels. This is in stark contrast to the Medical Board, which is, by its very nature, populated by members of the profession. This reliance on single opinions by the OHO lacks patency and has the potential to deny natural justice to the subject of the complaint.”
82 Natural Justice has been denied to me in this case.
83 Considering the fact that the OHO has a conflict of interest with being funded by Registered Health Practitioners I should have had a panel of experts in my field judge me not Mr Purcell.
84 “The public, and the profession, expects a fair and unbiased medical regulator. Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.” Page 7 of AMA report
85 “Uphold the principles of natural justice for all stakeholders The concepts of natural justice and procedural fairness are fundamental concepts to the exercise of administrative power. These rules will vary depending on the facts and circumstances of individual matters. However, there are several core tenets that must be discussed:….” “The bias rule: The bias rule requires that the decision maker should be disinterested and/or unbiased in the matter to be decided.” The OHO is funded by Registered Health Practitioners, therefore a conflict of interest occurs when they are taking the side of an oligopoly of registered health practitioners against an unregistered health practitioner, who does not contribute to them financially. “The concept of the application of natural justice and procedural fairness is vital as it attaches to the core question of what the medical regulator is designed to accomplish.” Same report page 8
86 In analysing the Application for costs by the OHO they reveal in point 2 that they are partially funded by registered health practitioners. Since this case is clearly a conflict of interest and opposing an oligopoly of registered health practitioners against unregistered health practitioners the OHO never previously revealed this conflict of interest which makes it impossible for them to claim to be impartial.
87 An organisation being funded by people that are involved in a dispute is a clear conflict of interest and was never declared during the court case nor is it clearly visible on their website. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest
88 Not declaring this conflict of interest previously is another example of corrupt behaviour by the OHO. From wikipedia “A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest.”
89 “A conflict of interest is a set of conditions in which professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as a patient’s welfare or the validity of research) tends to be unduly influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Conflict- of-interest rules […] regulate the disclosure and avoidance of these conditions.” — Dennis F. Thompson, The New England Journal of Medicine, 1993[3] Human Rights Violations by the OHO
91 Several of my human rights were violated by the OHO which were justified by the false findings of fact made against me and the false testimony of Mr Purcell.
92 I was ordered to remove videos of me performing the neck adjustments that I was legally allowed to do so both from before the 2009 legislation came into place defining cervical manipulations in the before mentioned way, also from other countries where Queensland laws do not apply and from before QCAT changed the law specifically with the intent to stop me performing my profession in a safe and ethical way.
93 My Federal Member of Parliament, Llew O’Brien who is also a former police office, when I brought this matter to his attention, said it’s like someone filming themselves smoking marijuana in Amsterdam, where it is legal and showing that video in Australia. In his opinion it was a ridiculous travesty of justice.
94 Videos are available in Australia of people doing all sorts of dangerous activities including brain surgery, boxing, cervical adjustments by chiropractors, drug taking, war activities, sporting activities that can involve injuries, driving a car, walking across a street etc.. People understand that in life there is intrinsic risk.
95 A meditation teacher once told me the story of living near an airbase and an aeroplane missed the runway and crashed into a house killing multiple people. All activities, even living in a house have risk and the risk associated with my practices have not even materialised at all due to the incredible safety of what we do.
96 “AHPRA has expressed a clear desire for the establishment and understanding of the Health Ombudsman’s thresholds as to what constitutes a serious mater, what constitutes a matter held by the OHO, what constitutes a matter that the Health Ombudsman takes no action on and what constitutes a matter that is not accepted. Our members have also raised concerns as to the opaqueness of the differing classifications of what constitutes a serious matter being a subjective evaluation, as opposed to an objective, evidence-based decision.” From the aforementioned Report on the OHO by the AMA
97 The “serious risk” posed to the public by my procedures is not based on any evidence whatsoever and is merely the opinion of one man who is not an expert in my field.
98 The idea and definition of “serious risk” being used to describe the fact that a “serious problem” can result from that activity means that almost all human activities involve serious risk, and this is a distortion of the real meaning of the intent of that word.
99 I have asked the judicial member whether he believes that the other professions that I refer to as an oligopoly, also pose a serious risk to the public. He has not replied to that email.
100 Again, I would presume that training and assessment would confer higher levels of safety rather than registration as dentists are a registered health profession and they are not allowed to perform cervical manipulations.
101 One would presume that someone untrained in a procedure or its contraindications would pose a significantly greater serious risk to a patient that someone trained in it but neither the devisors of this legislation or its enforcers seem to grasp this simple point that is so obvious and even obvious to members of that profession from overseas.
102 Therefore, they believe that to avert a serious risk, I should stop training people in how to perform the procedure safely and allow people untrained in the procedure to perform it, as medical practitioners can. This is another form of government incompetence and irresponsibility.
103 The OHO has provided no proof that what I do is any more dangerous than the activities of the other 4 professions allowed to practice cervical manipulations in Queensland
104 The expert witness who is either not an expert witness in the fields of cervical adjustment as he doesn’t know about high and low amplitude or is dishonest because he did know but chose to lie about it, does not have any significant knowledge about Raynor Naturopathic massage or the mitigating effects of massage on the risk of severe or serious reactions to cervical manipulation.
105 No risk can be proven at all so there is no justifiable reason to suppress my freedom of expression as the OHO has.
106 This has damaged my reputation and has caused loss of income from advertising revenues and course enrolments that the suppressed videos may have led to.
107 According to the Human Rights Commission of Queensland “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers Incompetence in government and the psychological damage that occurs to citizens.
113 The OHO, by neglecting its responsibility to act in a professional and impartial manner, has led to certain mental health conditions developing such as a feeling of paranoia and not trusting authority and the feeling that a witch hunt is being conducted against me rather than a professional investigation.
114 This, along with the obvious bias that this law allows medical practitioners to practice cervical adjustments without training, despite the obvious serious risk that this involves if the idea that cervical adjustments pose a serious risk is accepted, leads me to feel that the stated principals inherent in the OHO legislation of impartiality are a complete farce.
115 Again, the opinion of the judicial member that the OHO is an organization that behaves incompetently in a consistent and supposedly unbiased manner does nothing to reassure me about the competence of the organization that is causing so much stress in my life, when I have only helped people and caused no harm.
116 The fact that this incompetence has been allowed to go on so long and in such a well-known way makes me question the commitment to quality governance that the Queensland government should be committed to. The Minister for Health has also ignored my emails as well as the corruption commission.
117 When government organizations can lie about you and they are unaccountable then this is a form of tyranny and people like myself who oppose and advocate for fair and accountable governance become political dissidents, as the people in Myanmar are against their tyrannical government.
118 This has caused myself and my family enormous distress and as an obvious dissident of a tyrannical and incompetent government, has led me to seek relocation to another country where governance is of a higher quality.
119 In Australia, government power is misused to coerce individuals to be silent and live-in fear due to the lack of protections afforded to such individuals. I believe that the OHO has been trying to get costs awarded against me as a form of threat so that I didn’t appeal the case. This worked due to the financial stress that this would cause me and my wife.
120 Due to the incompetence of the government and death threats made against me within hours after the first QCAT hearing from anonymous sources I fear for my life as well as my livelihood.
122 The cost of me relocating and leaving Queensland is huge, especially in the time of Covid where the federal government has restrictions on Australians leaving, even political dissidents such as myself.
125 I do not believe I should pay the costs of the OHO since I have committed no crime and broken no laws.
126 I do not accept that conclusion of the judicial member that I try and work around the law. I believe this is an insult on my honour and reputation. Someone travelling at 59kph in a 60 zone is working within the law not outside of it.
127 I do not believe that this law was formulated in a professional manner and I think it should be changed by Parliament to be fairer. I note that the OHO and QCAT has changed this law to make it more discriminatory against Naturopaths and other allied health professionals not fairer.
128 However, I have always followed the law and even included the judicial members suggestion that I include notes not to perform these techniques designed to open the shushumna at home, during the transitions time between the first changing of the law and the second changing of the law.
129 Since the second changing of the law, I have not performed any shushumna opening techniques and I intend to fight this injustice through the political arena and/or relocate to live in a jurisdiction that does not display this antagonistic and discriminatory attitude towards Naturopaths.
130 This continuous attempt to slander me by changing words from my website, having expert witnesses believe that I would not refer my clients to medical practitioners and now inferring that I am a person that wants to “get around a law” rather than a law-abiding citizen is just one more attempt to characterize me in a villainous sort of way to justify having this prohibition order out against me despite breaking no laws and hurting no one. This Prohibition Order is discriminatory against me as it applies to no one else but me.
131 If the government wants to change a law then they should change it according to the correct principles of changing a law
132 Trying to slur my character by saying that I will not follow a law, just because I disagree with it, is pure defamatory. Again, this is just more evidence of QCAT and the OHO not acting in an impartial manner.
134 The OHO has engaged in an unnecessarily adversarial approach to dealing with this matter. The AMA has recognized that this is not a good approach for the OHO to take and instead advocates for “The biggest challenge to moving towards a safer health system is changing the culture from one of blaming individuals for errors to one in which errors are treated not as personal failures, but as opportunities to improve the system and prevent harm.” Page 12 of the same report.
135 I have suggested a standardized training package for cervical manipulation including all contraindications and a committee to establish the evolution of cervical manipulation approaches in Australia and look at improvements to safety such as the use of Raynor massage but this has fallen on deaf ears and instead an attack dog type of approach by the OHO has been used against me. This has been disgusting.
136 The OHO is partially funded by taxpayers and as such has an obligation to be both opaque in its dealing and accountable for its actions. This is what the AMA meant when they said that Natural justice should be not only be done but be seen to be done and the process should be opaque.
137 In trying to further understand the decision making process of the OHO that seems to be hidden behind a veil of secrecy, I sent an email with a series of questions to the OHO about their investigation.
138 This email was sent on March 8 and a subsequent follow up email was sent in case they had put it on the same desk where they put my earlier complaints about their organization but no reply has been seen by today the 22nd March nor even a reply acknowledging my email despite them asking if I had any questions.
139 Some of the relevant questions were
The first few questions relate to Mr Purcell stating that I was “most definitely doing cervical manipulations” in his affidavit with the definition that the OHO was asking him to refer to included in his affidavit.
- 1 Was one of the reasons you hired Mr Purcell because of his supposed expertise in understanding some of the more difficult aspects of the National Law for a lay person to understand? Those two aspects would be considered (a)what is a normal range of motion and (b) what is high velocity and low amplitude, as those were the only points a lay person may have difficulty understanding?
- 2 When you hired him as an expert witness would you have expected him to understand the terms high and low amplitude?
- 3 When someone uses the words “most definitely” would you presume that they mean there is no doubt or ambiguity that what I was doing was high velocity low amplitude adjustments, as the definition that Mr Purcell was asked to refer to.
- 4 When the OHO presented his affidavit as an expert witness were they aware that Mr Purcell was not in fact using the National Law definition of a cervical adjustment, but was using what he later described as “contemporary medicine definition”, despite nowhere stating that in his affidavit?
- 5 Did the OHO ever discuss the fact that Mr Purcell would be paid more if he stated that I was violating the National law, when as an expert in the field he would have known I was not?
- 6 How much would Mr Purcell have been paid if he had stated his opinion, which he later did under my cross examination, that what I was doing were all high amplitude adjustments?
- 7 Can the OHO issue a Prohibition Order against someone that is not violating any law just based on one man’s opinion?
The next questions relate to the false findings of fact which was supposedly taken from my website. The sentence in question was the one stating that “I teach cervical adjustments where we are legally allowed to do so” which you changed to…”which we are legally allowed to do so”
- 1 Why does your organization not copy and paste written words like most professional bodies would do rather than transcribe them thus avoiding so called mistakes like this?
- 2 Why does your organization not check their work when they transcribe words from a website, knowing full well the potential for errors that transcribing can have and the seriousness that legal findings of fact can be?
- 3 When a complaint was made by me about this what procedures did your office do with my complaint that caused it to be so called “lost”?
- 4 Is losing complaints against the OHO a common way of dealing with complaints that the OHO doesn’t like?
- 5 Why does the OHO not have a secure system that is well organised for dealing with complaints against itself?
- 6 Why did it take so long to answer my second complaint about this matter and why was it was only dealt with right before the court case?
- 7 Would the OHO consider the way that they made a false finding of fact against me and the way that my complaints were dealt with to be unprofessional or is this the type of behaviour that the OHO considers to be professional and in line with their organization’s values?”
140 This lack of opaqueness and accountability leads me again to feel that there is a power imbalance. When the OHO asked me personal questions about my business such as the names and contact details of all my students I was obliged to answer their questions under penalty. However due to their quasi secret way of functioning and not being answerable to anyone, they merely put my questions on a desk of someone that loses them or makes up some other excuse for their unprofessional behaviour.