Page 1675 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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MS FITZHARRIS (Yerrabi—Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Medical and Health Research, Minister for Transport and Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) (10.46), by leave: The response to the petition that you, Madam Speaker, brought to this place regarding the Canberra Sexual Health Centre which the Clerk tabled this morning responded to Mrs Dunne’s comments regarding the future of the location of the Canberra Sexual Health Centre and indicated that ACT Health and Canberra Health Services, including the Canberra Sexual Health Centre, are in very close conversation about the future location to ensure a seamless transition of those services, as has all other occupants of building 5.
Of course, given that Canberra Sexual Health Centre is a clinical service, it is a very high priority to ensure continuity of access and we are working very closely with them. There has been a clear allocation of funding to make sure that they can be relocated seamlessly when demolition of building 5 begins in the very near future.
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (10.47), in reply: I will speak very briefly and thank members in this chamber for their support of and, in large part, their candidness in bringing attention to this issue. As I mentioned, sex and sexual health are not things that are regularly spoken about in this place, whether it is in our committees or in the chamber, and I think bringing more attention to it and all its interrelated areas can only be a good thing. I am proud to continue to lead the conversation in this space and very much appreciate the support of the minister and the government.
I am a bit disappointed at what I would take to be the lack of effort put into Mrs Dunne’s speech in that she hijacked the motion to take cheap pot shots at the government and in doing so largely missed the point of the motion. The motion is about further enhancing what we are already doing in the area, which has been a strategic approach. We did talk extensively, at least on this side of the chamber, about how all the organisations have been working very closely with the government on their impact and on increasing their impact.
This is about complementing what they are already doing by engaging with an outreach model. I think Mrs Dunne missed that entirely. I am very disappointed because she has previously been quite supportive of the sexual health conversation in committees, and her contribution was not the level of effort that I expected today.
I think that we have made the point that community outreach programs are great but they are not enough. It is not enough to just put out spot fires and do one-offs. What we need to have is a community outreach model, something that is ongoing, something that has appropriate resourcing, so that we can arrest the trends and we are not talking about increasing rates of notification and we are not talking about prevalence as much as we are right now.
But the fact is: this is where we are at and we need to continue to be open, continue to reduce the stigma and continue to ensure that people know of these services, can reach these services and make sure that we are doing whatever we can to ensure that these services are reached.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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