Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tomorrow, 1 December 2006, is World AIDS Day, and on 3 December we will observe the International Day of People with a Disability. Tonight I wish to make a few comments about both HIV-AIDS and people with a disability. I am also going to use this opportunity to acknowledge a great South Australian organisation that does exemplary work protecting people from diseases such as HIV-AIDS and which also assists people with disabilities to participate equally in our community.

It is now 25 years since HIV-AIDS was first diagnosed. It is estimated there are now some 39.3 million people in the world living with HIV-AIDS. There will be over four million new infections in 2006, and nearly one million of them will be in our area of the world—East, South, and South-East Asia and Oceania. Too many people have already died of HIV-AIDS and related illnesses and too many people will have their economic, cultural and social opportunities stolen from them because they are or someone they know is living with HIV-AIDS. In Australia, thankfully, our HIV-AIDS infection rates are tenuously stable. However, practitioners in the field remind us all the time that we cannot be complacent about the situation here.

One of the best ways to prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS is to ensure that people engage in safe sex practices. Ensuring people engage in safe sex practices requires that they are educated about sex, sexual relations, sexuality and the potential outcomes of participating in sexual activity, including pregnancy and contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV-AIDS. People partake in sexual activity, always have done and always will. It is a part of life—an essential part of life, in fact. Most people will participate in some kind of sexual activity during their lives.

People with a disability also participate in sexual activity. There are, in Australia, some 3.95 million people with a reported disability and it is safe to assume that most of them, like the rest of us, have engaged, will engage or wish to engage in sexual activity. The International Day of People with a Disability reminds us that people with a disability often suffer discrimination in respect of participating fully in the political, economic, cultural and social aspects of life. Unless their special needs are met, disabled people can miss out on services most of us take for granted, and that includes information about matters to do with sex and sexuality, including safe sex.

The South Australian organisation to which I earlier referred is SHine SA. SHine is an acronym for Sexual Health Information, Networking and Education. First established in the late 1960s as the Family Planning Association, SHine is a state and federally funded organisation that works in partnership with government, health, education and community agencies to improve the sexual health and wellbeing of South Australians.

Starting from the principle that all people should be able to enjoy good sexual health, SHine has prioritised the groups of South Australians that have the most need and least choice in achieving that objective. Amongst the communities most in need are young people 19 years and under, young adults 20 to 30 years old, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people from regional, rural and remote communities and people with disabilities. The many programs and initiatives that SHine undertakes are outlined in the organisation’s excellent annual report, which I commend to senators.

Because of the work that it does, SHine’s activities attract the attention of some people and organisations who are opposed to the public provision of information and education about sex and sexual health, particularly when it involves young people. Research consistently shows that countries that provide comprehensive sex education programs in schools have lower incidences of teenage pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. Research in this country also consistently shows that, by year 10, the majority of secondary students in this country are sexually active in some way. Given these facts, you would think the responsible thing to do would be to ensure that all young people have as much information as possible about how to keep themselves safe if they engage in sexual activity. But that is not an attitude we see from some groups in our community, who think that if we do not talk about sex young people will not engage in sexual activity—don’t talk about it and it will go away! Fortunately, most Australians do not share that hopeful, if not ludicrous, view of human sexuality.

In 2003 SHine, with funding from the South Australian government, developed and trialled a program for school students called SHARE, an acronym for Sexual Health and Relationships Education. When the SHAREprogram was trialled in 15 South Australian schools, SHine came under attack. In a concerted, well-organised campaign various groups whipped up debate, attempting to alarm the public by falsely and maliciously portraying the program as dangerous, a moral threat, an attempt to undermine parental authority, a threat to so-called ‘family values’ and even, in some newspaper advertisements, an attempt to ‘steal your children’s values’.

A particularly vile part of the campaign was the homophobic content of much of the material put about by opponents of the program. A frightening aspect of the orchestrated campaign was the personal attacks and intimidation perpetrated on the staff of SHine by some opponents, who took matters to the extreme. Organisations that were overtly opposed to the SHAREprogram included Right to Life, the Australian Family Association, the Festival of Light, the Family First Party, the Assemblies of God churches and the Liberal opposition in the state parliament. Despite the campaign against SHine, the SHARE program was accepted by parents and teachers and successfully trialled in South Australian schools. It received overwhelmingly positive responses from teachers, parents and children.

Earlier this year SHine again came under attack, this time by the Family First Party in South Australia. As I said before, SHine identifies people with a disability as one of the groups in our community most in need of its services. SHine works with disabled persons advocacy groups and health providers and carers to assist disabled people achieve the goal of good sexual health.

People with disabilities, just like other Australians, sometimes engage sex workers. Unfortunately, disabled people are often particularly vulnerable in this situation and there is evidence that unscrupulous providers take advantage of their vulnerability. Adelaide’s Sex Industry Network, SIN—an interesting acronym—has compiled a list of sex workers who provide safe and responsible services to disabled persons. The intention of the list is to protect vulnerable people who may engage sex workers. At the request of a disability advocacy organisation, the list was forwarded, on one isolated occasion, by the Sex Industry Network to SHine. Subsequently a copy of this list somehow came to the attention of Family First in South Australia. In September this year, a member of Family First in the legislative council in South Australia, Mr Dennis Hood, used the existence of the sex industry list to make another appalling attack on SHine and its staff. Accusing SHine of supporting prostitution and of misusing public moneys, he called for SHine’s funding to be frozen and for a police investigation.

There has been no finding of wrongdoing by SHine or its staff. Here is an organisation that works harder than most to ensure disabled people are treated with respect, dignity and fairness. In September 2006, we had Family First trying to destroy SHine. The upshot of that action by Mr Hood was that SHine and its staff were again subjected to virulent personal attacks and intimidation, and disabled persons were subjected to salacious media speculation about their sexual needs.

Fortunately, as with the SHARE program, the attitude of most South Australians—and, I suspect, most Australians—was that, despite the hysterical reaction of Family First, no-one else could see what the fuss was about. The prevailing attitude was that people—even disabled and young people—participate in sexual activities and, if they are going to do so, it is better to do it in ways that keep them safe and healthy. I commend the work that SHine and its staff do on behalf of all South Australians, and I look forward to receiving their next annual report.