Page 4209 - Week 13 - Thursday, 14 December 2006
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Right from the start, Australia’s response has been very strong. It is to be acknowledged that that has occurred under federal governments of both persuasions and state governments of both persuasions. That is the way it has to be when we have an issue like this. Unless we do this together as a community, we run the risk of seeing infection rates increase—and, of course, from that, seeing deaths increase.
We have an obligation. When we look at some of the statistics around the world, we can see that an estimated 70 per cent of all people living with HIV in Australia in 2005 were treated with anti-retroviral therapy, yet the majority of people in countries like those in Africa have absolutely no access to these drugs. This is why the number of deaths is decreasing, thank God, in Australia, but there is so much more that we need to do overseas, across the world, to make this problem better.
We in the ACT have a unified approach, and it works. In Africa for many years there was absolute denial that the disease even existed, so the approaches to dealing with the issue were spasmodic. It is great that countries like South Africa have now taken a different approach and gone on the front foot, whereas six or seven years ago they were more or less in denial. I think that a large amount of that is due to the hard work of some of their ambassadors, who have come to countries like Australia, taken information home and furthered the debate. Debates like the one we are having today can only reinforce the fact that we have to continually talk about this subject. If we do not talk about it—if we forget it—we run the risk of seeing infection rates go up.
This year I was very lucky to receive from the AIDS Action Council their Communications and Media Award for 2006, in acknowledgment of support of the AIDS Action Council and of HIV/AIDS issues. I received that quite proudly; it hangs on the wall in my office. It is something that says that, no matter where we stand in this room or any room beyond this, we all have a role to play; whatever the small thing that you as an individual can do—whether as an MLA or as a member of a social group such as Rotary, Lions, a church group or a school community—we have to keep this issue on the agenda or run the risk of seeing the rates of infection increase.
The whole purpose of making sure you have a strategy is to actually let people know that you have the strategy, that you enforce the strategy, and that you continually look for ways to ensure not only that the strategy is effective for those who know but also that the reach and the spread of the strategy are increased so that all people know about how to combat AIDS. That means that getting the message out to all sectors of the community—not just the well-educated ones and the ones that can read and write, but the ones from poorer socioeconomic groups, the ones from ethnic groups that perhaps do not discuss this issue as well as some groups do, the communities that actually have taboos where the issue is either not acknowledged or not spoken about. We have greater openness in that regard, so we can get the message out. If, through doing that, we can save one soul, that is a fabulous outcome.
Earlier this year we had the masquerade ball. Mr Barr was there; I was there. It was a great night. There was a lot of work done by a lot of people.
Mr Hargreaves: Mary was there.
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