I’ve been trying to contact you all for almost 4 years!!
In February 2012 I made a Freedom of Information (FOI) Request to the Department of Health and Ageing, to request the names and contact details of all GPs who are subject to this inequity, so we could unite and fight for justice.
The Department stymied my simple request at every turn, at one point demanding I pay over $165,000 (!!) to access the contact information of all my peers who are subject to this gross injustice. Of course there was no way I could pay even a fraction of such a sum - and they knew it.
The FOI request has been handled by the Department in a disingenuous manner, and they have throughout this process been determinedly and deliberately obstructive. They not only failed to abide by the official FOI legal process and time-frame but have purposely flouted it in this case.
The financial circumstances - indeed Human Rights - of well over 4700 other Australian General Practitioners continue to be in dire straits, due to this so-called “VR/Non-VR” GP categorization and resultant pay discrimination of Australian GPs by the federal government.
The Department of Health and Ageing clearly does not want us to have each others contact details – because they know if we were united we could effectively fight for our rights.
For almost the last 4 years I have been in a protracted (and still unresolved) complaint process with both the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner - and the Commonwealth Ombudsman- to try to finally obtain the contact details of each one of you.
But of course, now with this website, there is also another way.
If you are one of the 4750+ Australian-born and trained GPs who are treated so despicably by the federal government and send Fair Go for Doctors a message with your contact details, including your phone number. We will call you back. (We will also at that stage need to quickly verify your details with the Medical Board to ensure this is not a spurious enquiry. Sorry, but sadly we know, from previous experience, that there are some politicians and bureaucrats who really don’t want this cause to progress. They will try to stop it in every way they possibly can.)
I look forward to speaking with you, and to finally ending this deplorable government-created discrimination.
Yours, for a Fair Go for Doctors
Dr Peter
MB.BS. (Hons) BSc.
A so-called "Non-VR" GP