Meryl Dorey – the libelous, private public officer

Ever since the very beginnings of Stop the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network, five years ago, anti-vaccination ideologue Meryl Dorey has steadfastly refused to answer simple questions via email. The questions pertain to the operations of the (then) Australian Vaccination Network, her (once influential) anti-vaccination pressure group. The group is now rightly, and publicly, in tatters; both ethically and financially. This is proper.

Meryl Dorey is the ex-president. Dorey was and still is the public officer of the AVN.

Many years ago Dorey lied about Ken McLeod in a response to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission. Dorey claimed, among other things:

“Mr McLeod has made numerous direct communications to the AVN and myself via email communication over the last few years, and such communications have been very rude and aggressive in tone and intimidating in nature, particularly towards myself. I have found dealing with this man very distressing and hurtful,”

and

“the threat that he poses and continues to pose to me and my family is very real….”

and

“I can give no explanation for the ferocity with which he pursues both myself and the AVN….”

The immediate problem for Dorey was that Mr McLeod kept every single bit of correspondence between himself and Dorey, and he asked her to substantiate her lies about him. If you check the above link, you can see for yourself why Dorey never, ever answered for her lies. She often repeats the slurs on Mr McLeod and others of us who attempt to elicit some honesty from her; but, she’s never retracted any of her lies about Mr McLeod.

So, we see how she operates as the public officer of an incorporated association. She lies, claims harassment, and lies some more.

Here is Fair Trading NSW’s page on the responsibilities of a public officer.

A public officer is the official point of contact:

Again, the public officer is responsible for acting as the official contact for the association:

Remembering now that the public officer’s duty is a to act as the official contact, this means that the public officer is the person to whom the public makes requests of the organisation, including any the provision of any documentation as covered under legislation. Dorey has never done this, to the best of my knowledge.

Today we saw another example of what Dorey thinks are her duties as the public officer. Apart from publishing an email sent to her as the public officer of the AVsN (how’s the privacy going?), Dorey also included another accusation that Ken McLeod, a member of the public, is harassing her; she included his internet provider’s name; threatened him with reports to his internet provider; threatened to report him to ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority; and she did this by including his picture. Just who is doing the harassing here?

There is one little thing Dorey also included in this post: she claims that her meryl@avn.org.au email address, which can be seen on basically every official public utterance from Dorey, is somehow “private”. You read that right. The public officer of an incorporated association claims that contacting her on her organisation’s email address is “private”. And it is therefore “harassment”:

I’ve included his picture because I like to be reminded that he exists. However, here is a more recent photo of Mr McLeod having just stepped from the carriage to acquire his substantial share portfolio: