Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to follow both the member for Griffith and the member for Grayndler on this important matter. I rise to speak in support of the member for Griffith's motion on World AIDS Day, which is Thursday of this week, a health issue which has wide-reaching impacts across all of our constituencies.

World AIDS Day is a good opportunity to both reflect on the significant progress we have made in fighting AIDS in our community, and to reaffirm our commitment to the challenges ahead. Certainly, developments in treating HIV have been a public health triumph. From the first Australian AIDS death in 1983 until the present day, where living with HIV is no longer a death sentence but is managed as a chronic disease, Australia has been at the front line of treatment.

Over the last 30 years the development of retrovirals, combined in this country with our world-class universal health care system, Medicare, and our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme have meant the vast majority of Australians with HIV have been able to access the health care they need to ensure they will not go on to develop AIDS. We have also led the world internationally in trying to make sure that these retrovirals are available in developing countries.

We are at a stage where most people who now contract HIV in this country will be able to successfully manage their condition and remain relatively healthy for the rest of their lives. And advancements in treatment are continuing. One factor which will play a significant role in the fight against HIV is pre-exposure prophylaxis medicine, PrEP, which experts have called a 'game changer'. Trials of PrEP have shown it is highly effective at stopping the transmission of HIV, and that it will play an important part in supporting Australia to reach the goal of virtually eliminating HIV transmissions by 2020. I commend the number of state governments who are trialling PrEP and making PrEP available. We hope that it will eventually be available on the pharmaceutical benefits schedule.

But, while we mark the progress we have made in fighting HIV/AIDS in Australia, more than ever we cannot afford to be complacent. According to the most recent statistics, there are approximately 27,150 people living with HIV in Australia. It is estimated that 12 per cent of these people are unaware of their HIV positive status. While the rate of notifications per 100 people diagnosed and living with HIV has declined by 25 per cent in the past ten years in Australia, progress has flat-lined over the past three years. Significantly, the HIV diagnosis rate in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has increased in the past five years.

We cannot afford any sign of complacency. Many Australians are of the impression that the great success we have had in dramatically reducing the numbers of Australians with HIV means that HIV-AIDS was no longer the threat it had once been. This is simply not the case. Australians must continue to be made aware that HIV remains a very serious threat and that the transmission of HIV can only be halted by safe sex practices and through harm minimisation with intravenous drug users. We still need to work very significantly with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as a population to get the rates down there and we are working on the evidence for that.

As well as awareness of how at-risk groups can minimise their risk of acquisition, we must also promote awareness of how to support individuals living with, or affected by, HIV/AIDS. Confronting discrimination and promoting acceptance should be an essential part of community conversations about HIV/AIDS. Challenging the stigma around the disease is a critical part of promoting awareness and making sure people not only feel empowered to tackle the disease if they are infected, but to take steps to protect themselves from transmission in the first place.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work of researchers, AIDS activists, friends, family and supporters, as well as people living with HIV, in building a community in which HIV is now a disease people can live with. We know it has been the community working on prevention, hand in hand with government, community organisations and HIV-infected people, that has underpinned the success here in Australia, and that must continue to be the case. Again, I am always disappointed that we have seen many of the HIV-AIDS organisations defunded under this government. I would caution very strongly that the government, if it is going to continue to get infection rates down, needs to continue to engage with the sector. That funding needs to be restored or they need to work with the community to see how they can continue the very important services they provide today.

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