THE Australian Medical Association has evolved into an activist political organisation more interested in promoting party drugs and open borders than serious health issues, according to a former government advisor. 

Mr Terry Barnes, a senior health advisor to two former Federal Health Ministers, has described the medical association as “GetUp in white coats” who no longer represents the wider medical community.

“Only a relative few doctors are members of the AMA,” Mr Barnes said. “One estimate is that of the 35,000 GPs in Australia, less than 5000 are AMA members.” 

Although the AMA claims a higher membership, it admits it accounts for significantly less than half the medical profession.

HINDERANCE

“Most doctors, I don’t think, go in for activism,” Mr Barnes said in a 2018 2GB radio interview. “They go in to look after patients and to do the right thing by their patients.”

“So in that sense, I think the AMA is far more a hinderance than a help in coming up with a better health care system.”

Despite its low representation, the AMA has mistakenly become the go-to mouthpiece among media and politicians for “independent” comment on medical matters.

It should, instead, be viewed for what it is – a doctors’ trade union and political lobbyist organisation.

“Increasingly, the AMA under its current generation of leadership has not just been the CFMEU in white coats but GetUp in white coats,” Mr Barnes said.

VIRTUE SIGNALLING

“They are subscribing to Left-leaning and activist causes like the environment and climate change, dealing with border protection and certainly getting on the same sex marriage bandwagon with great gusto.

“Really, when it comes down to it … it’s just virtue signalling.”

More recently, the AMA has lent its support to illegal party drugs under the guise of “safe pill-testing”.

AMA President Dr Tony Bartone said the AMA considered pill testing trials as “an important element of broader harm minimisation strategies”.

This move was welcomed with open arms by many Left-leaning politicians in their efforts to decriminalise illegal drugs.

One of the first out of the blocks was Federal Warringah MP Zali Steggall who said she backed the AMA’s support of “pill testing to save lives”.

RIPPING FAMILIES APART

But a former member of the National Advisory Council on Drugs and Alcohol, Cr Pat Daley OAM, said such an approach was both “irresponsible and dangerous”.

“Having worked for The Salvation Army and NSW Police I’m in regular contact with people who are dealing with the horrors of drug addiction which is ripping families apart,” said Cr Daley, who currently serves on Sydney’s Northern Beaches Council.

“The clear message has to be that there is no safe way to use drugs,” he said.

“If we go down the harm minimisation path as the AMA proposes, it will end in tragedy and tears. It will make alcohol-related problems seem like a picnic in the park by comparison.

“Instead, we should be seeking harm prevention and we must not normalise illegal drug use.”PC

MAIN PHOTOGRAPH: AMA President Dr Tony Bartone. (courtesy SMH)