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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 4 Hansard (11 April) . . Page.. 1024 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Within ACT high schools, educational programs provide, and include, information on the use of condoms, and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. There is also a focus on the provision of information on HIV-AIDS transmission.

Currently, it is policy to permit condom vending machines-and condom vending machines are available in secondary colleges. Nowadays, however, due to the increased availability of condoms in many other places, condom vending machines are not broadly used within the school system. The experience with condom vending machines at secondary colleges showed that not a great many condoms were accessed from the machines. The reason behind this seems to have been a lack of privacy and anonymity for students accessing condom machines in colleges.

Moreover, I think it would be fair to say that there has been a very significant change in the availability of condoms over the past decade. Community attitudes have undergone a major shift in relation to safe-sex practices. This is reflected in the provision of condom vending machines in numerous outlets, such as public toilets, shopping centres, supermarkets, service stations, and many other venues. There are, of course, other ways in which young people access condoms. The government remains committed to a harm minimisation approach. This relates as much to sexual health as it does to many other areas of the health portfolio.

Papers

Mr Stanhope presented the following paper:

Commission of Audit report

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming and Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Corrections): Mr Speaker, for the information of members, I present the following paper:

I ask for leave to make a statement.

Leave granted.

MR QUINLAN: As members will recall, I tabled a report on the territory's finances as at 31 October 2001, prepared by the Commission of Audit on 7 March 2002.

The report provided a snapshot of the territory's financial position on that date and included financial results for 31 October 2001. The estimated outcome for 2001-02 and the forward estimates are based on the issues known-and the policies-as at the time.

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