Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House

(1) notes that:

(a) 1 December marks World AIDS Day, which is held every year to raise awareness about the issues concerning HIV and AIDS, and is a day for people to show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died; and

(b) the theme for World AIDS Day this year is 'HIV is still here—and it's on the move';

(2) acknowledges the roles played by people living with HIV and their friends, family, supporters, AIDS activists and researchers, past and present, in making living with HIV possible; and

(3) will support actions to reduce stigma and prevent new HIV transmissions, and work towards a cure.

The 1st of December marks World AIDS Day. It is held every year to raise awareness of the issues in relation to HIV and AIDS. It is a day for people to show their support for those living with HIV and also to remember those who have died. It is always important to acknowledge that there have been many, many terrible tragedies across decades from those who have died from this terrible disease and to acknowledge all of those people and their families in anticipation of World AIDS Day.

The theme for this year is 'HIV is still here, and it's on the move', because the prevalence of HIV and AIDS is something that is continuing to be a really important problem for our society both here in Australia and internationally. I think that, given the amount of time that has elapsed since HIV and AIDS first came to the nation's attention and since the campaigns of the 1980s, sometimes it is possible for us to forget just how significant and how ongoing this crisis is in Australia and across the world. The Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations advises that, by the end of 2015, 36.7 million people across the world were estimated to be living with HIV, with 46 per cent of them being on life-saving antiretroviral treatment, which certainly would not have been the case a long time ago.

In 2015, there were 2.1 million people who became newly infected with HIV, down from 3.1 million in 2000; 17 million had access to HIV treatments, up from 7.5 million in 2010 and 15 million in 2014; and 1.1 million people died of AIDS-related causes in that year, a fall of 43 per cent in annual deaths since 2003. These are encouraging statistics, but the number of people affected is still too high. It is worth noting, given some of the conceptions about this particular disease, that adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 accounted for 20 per cent of new infections among adults globally in 2015, although they comprise only 11 per cent of the population. This is a very multifaceted challenge for the world to face and, here in Australia, it is something that we continue to face together.

I wanted to acknowledge and pay tribute to the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations and to thank Darryl O'Donnell, who joined the federation from ACON earlier this year. That organisation is a federation of AIDS organisations. The AIDS organisations in this country have been doing such a fantastic job of not just cutting down the stigma around HIV and AIDS but also making sure that people have access to life-saving medication like the retroviral medication I mentioned earlier. I know that, most importantly, they are looking for ways to prevent people from contracting the disease in the future. They are looking at ways we can make medicine for people with HIV and AIDS something that is a feature of the past—if we could get rid of AIDS like we have with polio, for example, what a wonderful world it would be.

One important measure in the fight for prevention of HIV and AIDS is pre-exposure prophylaxis, and I know that everyone in this House and in the other place will join me in encouraging the government to continue to work towards listing PrEP on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It is really important that, where we can help with prevention of the contraction of HIV, we do seek to help with prevention of the contraction of HIV. It is something that I know many, many people will be campaigning for.

My friend Phil Carswell, who I mentioned in, I think, last year's World AIDS Day motion or possibly the year before, is a founding member of the Victorian AIDS Council. He recently travelled to Canberra—a little bit later than he had anticipated doing so—to give a speech about the history of AIDS activism and responses to HIV and AIDS in this country since those fairly notorious grim reaper ads of the 1980s. I particularly want to pay tribute to him. He is not as young as he once was—and he will not mind me saying that—but is continuing to work very hard in the campaign to assist in breaking down stigma, to ensure that people get the treatment they need and to build on the efforts towards prevention, which are so important.

I also have a range of wonderful organisations in my home state of Queensland. For example, I recently had the benefit of, alongside Tanya Plibersek, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, visiting the Queensland AIDS Council, and I wanted to thank them. They did an amazing job at the pride fair this year of putting a lot of information out and reaching out to people—those with HIV and without HIV—in relation to this terrible disease, and I thank them for their work as well.

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