Page 3506 - Week 13 - Thursday, 26 November 1992
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One government, the Northern Territory Government, is changing to get to the same position that we have - a rational approach. Why is it being done? In order to avoid stigmatisation; in order to encourage people to come forward and get treatment for AIDS. As Mr Humphries says, there is no cure. He is right on that. As Mr Humphries says, and again he is right, prevention is the only approach here. We have to take a mature approach. The Northern Territory Liberal Government is taking just that mature approach. It is actually changing the law in relation to age of consent for homosexuality. It is reducing - - -
Mrs Carnell: To 13?
Mr De Domenico: And you will change it to 13, will you?
MR CONNOLLY: No. The Chief Minister has made that clear. This is, again, cheap and grubby sewer politics from the Liberal Party. The Northern Territory Government is taking the courageous political step of reducing the age of consent for homosexual acts to bring it into line with heterosexual acts. That has been the law in this Territory for about seven or eight years, as it is in Victoria. That is the step about which Mrs Carnell, to make cheap, grubby politics, said earlier this morning, "That is a recommendation that no-one could agree with". Well, your political colleague, the Liberal Health Minister, is doing exactly that.
Madam Speaker, as I said at the outset, we have dealt with AIDS in this country in a way which is the model for other countries. We have done that because a mature approach has been taken by all political parties, by all State and Territory governments. The temptation to play this sort of scaremongering politics to get cheap headlines has been resisted by everyone up until now. It is sad that Mrs Carnell has not been able to resist the temptation to get a good headline, to get some public prominence, by getting down in the gutter and running those points.
What Mr Berry has done in this regulation is to move very swiftly to bring our notification law into line with what is the national recommendation. There is a range of other recommendations. Mr Humphries seemed to be making the point - shock, horror - that we have not done it all at once and therefore we are to be condemned. Mrs Carnell, on the other hand, said that there are recommendations in here which no-one could agree with. Clearly, we cannot please Mr Humphries, who says that unless we take all the recommendations and implement them all at once we should not do any of them, while pleasing Mrs Carnell, who says that there are some recommendations that they could not possibly agree with.
All the Liberals are doing here, Madam Speaker, is playing politics. That is fine. Everyone who is elected here is a politician. We have to accept a bit of that. But I would say: "Let us do what every other State government has done, and every other State opposition has done, and not play politics with AIDS, because the issue is far too important.
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