Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to rise to speak on this motion today moved by the member for Higgins, highlighting the vital role that Australia continues to play in the fight to combat HIV/AIDS. As you noted in your contributions, member for Macarthur, this year marks 40 years since the first reported case of HIV. As we look back over the last couple of decades, we can see how radical policy changes to our public health response has produced utterly extraordinary progress across the globe. According to the Global Fund 2021 Results Report, last year 27.5 million of the 37.7 million people living with HIV were on life-saving antiretroviral therapy globally. That is up from a very small by comparison 7.8 million people who were in that situation back in 2010. So, globally AIDS related deaths have fallen 47 per cent since 2010.

Whilst this milestone is absolutely worth celebrating, it is critical that we also acknowledge that we are facing a very new and sobering reality. COVID-19 is reversing many of the hard-fought gains in the fight against HIV and other blood-borne diseases like TB and malaria not just here in Australia but globally. Because of the disruptions and restrictions imposed as a result of COVID-19, communities at greater risk of HIV infection have been unable to access the tools and information needed to protect themselves. COVID-19 has disrupted the supply chains, limited access to prevention tools such as condoms, lubricants and ARVs. The number of people reached by HIV prevention programs and services declined by 11 per cent and programs aimed at reaching young people declined by 12 per cent. Above all the global pandemic has exacerbated inequalities that make people more susceptible to HIV, and to end HIV and to confront new threats like COVID-19 we must renew our commitment to vulnerable communities and ensure that no-one is left behind, regardless of where you live on this planet.

Since the beginning of the HIV-AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s there have been strong partnerships between governments and oppositions, with the affected communities, people living with HIV, researchers and the health profession always being at the heart of Australia's response. Those kinds of collaborative partnerships have always been strong in Australia. As a senior adviser to the then Australian health minister, Bill Bowtell played a very significant role in the development and the introduction of Medicare and our universal health system back in 1984. At the very same time he was overseeing an enormously successful and well regarded Australian response to HIV and AIDS. To this day Bill maintains a very close interest in the potential impact of the HIV-AIDS epidemic and other communicable diseases on the social, economic and political development of the Asia-Pacific region via his work now with the HIV-AIDS project at the Lowy Institute for international policy and he leads the Pacific Friends of the Global Fund.

Likewise, the work of the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales has been pivotal to Australia's most recent efforts to tackle HIV. In 2016 Professor Andrew Grulich and his team from the UNSW led the first large-scale trial of the groundbreaking HIV-prevention medication called PrEP. In recent years the PrEP pill has ushered in a sexual, social and political revolution amongst those most affected by HIV. It's contributed to the unprecedented reductions in new HIV infections, although, as the member for Bennelong noted, that is not the case in First Nations communities, and that remains a really huge issue for us and a gross inequality in this nation. But PrEP has the potential to significantly impact Australia's response to the HIV epidemic. It's an important new option in a suite of HIV strategies and responses to help end HIV transmission.

Certainly, in June this year the global community adopted new targets, through the political declaration at the UN, to get us back on track to stop an AIDS epidemic. The COVID-19 pandemic, as I mentioned, has had a catastrophic impact on the most vulnerable communities around the world and threatens to roll back progress on HIV, TB and malaria. As a global community we've got to unite to fight against them all. This is a time for us to step up and replenish the global fund. The government has done so in the past. I'm calling on them today to make sure that there is a generous replenishment in the global fund again.

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