Page 3507 - Week 13 - Thursday, 26 November 1992
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MR STEVENSON (11.44): The Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, accused Kate Carnell of quoting from Who magazine, which he referred to as a trashy magazine and therefore the statement had no validity. That is obviously the conclusion we must draw from the Attorney-General's statements. Let me read a letter from Trisha Goddard that she wrote for members of this Assembly. I read it on her behalf:
The story about my experience with my ex-husband and AIDS as written in the WHO magazine this week is factual. Every detail given by me to the writer Melisande Clarke, was checked upon by no fewer than 2 other WHO editors in order to insure the magazine remains litigation free.
These are the facts: Although I had constant professional contact with my ex-husband, Robert Nestdale, he chose not to reveal the true nature of his illness; insisting that he had lukaemia and not that he had full-blown AIDS and had been HIV-positive since about 1980. (We were married from 1985-86) Needless to say, he never informed me of his bi-sexuality before, during or after our relationship. His doctor informed me that Robert had refused to give permission for a Social worker to inform me he had AIDS. He then changed his story and said he had informed me, I'd been tested and was HIV negative. A complete lie. If it had not been for the conscience of one of his closest friends who by chance had discovered Robert had had lymphoma, and informed me of this, (after his death and Memorial Service) plus his advice that maybe I should have an AIDS test, I would have been none the wiser. As I have tested Negative all is physically well. However if I had been infected, I would have unknowingly infected my tiny baby and new partner.
During the long days we spent waiting for the test results, I was counselled by one of this country's most experienced AIDS counsellors and discovered that married bisexual men rarely tell their spouses that (a) they are bisexual, and (b) they are HIV-positive. She knows. She has to arrange the Counselling sessions for HIV-positive mothers and their babies ... a group that I would have joined if I had tested positive.
If the bisexual partner will not tell his wife, if the Doctor legally cannot tell her ... if we are all concentrating on the Civil liberty rights of the AIDS infected person only, what then? Do we shrug our shoulders and say "Tough luck, wife and kids"?
You in the ACT are luckier than I was in NSW. You presently have a system where a partner can be informed via your HIV/AIDS notification procedures. Authorities have a name and can inform the spouse in situations where the infected partner will not. Should you do away with this procedure you had better make sure you institute a system where partners can independently be informed, because please do not be naive enough to think that once someone becomes sick they turn into angelic beings. If they have spent a life-time concealing, lying, arranging clandestine meetings with lovers, the HIV virus will rarely change anything. Do drug addicts give up their habit on the spot once they've learned they have AIDS?
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