HIV

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:12): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking questions of the minister representing the Minister for Health regarding the HIV non-government services tender.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Information has been given to my office this afternoon from three independent sources that a semi-government organisation, in concert with a Victorian provider, has been awarded the community-based tender for HIV services. My questions to the minister are:

1. Does the minister intend to outsource any other health tenders to Victoria?

2. Does the minister believe that Victoria does a better job of providing this range of health services?

3. Does the board of the auspicing organisation awarded the tender run grassroots community programs and have a board comprised of people all living with HIV?

4. Why will local South Australian gay men and HIV positive people have to endure servicing from an organisation that is based in Victoria?

5. Does Victoria have an HIV infection rate of zero, demonstrating that they have superior programs which we should mirror here in South Australia?

6. Why have the passionate, skilled staff who have provided a dedicated local service for approximately 30 years been overlooked to continue this service provision?

7. Why will people with HIV be forced to use a medicalised service to maintain their wellbeing rather than continue to have that option through a community-based organisation operated by their peers?

8. Why has the tender been awarded in a fashion that pathologises people living with HIV as vectors of disease?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:14): In fact, I can give the honourable member some answers to her questions now, as I went to a briefing arranged by the minister yesterday on this matter.

I have to say that I reject some of the premise involved in the honourable member's questions. I know a little bit about this organisation called the Victorian AIDS Council. I understand that, in fact, the contract has been awarded to a partnership between the Victorian AIDS Council and SHine SA. It's not a contract, as far as I understand, that it has been awarded to an out-of-state provider. It is a partnership being backed up by I should say the preeminent, in my opinion, gay community organisation working in the field of HIV in this country.

The Victorian AIDS Council is a community-led organisation that has been around for many, many years. I can remember myself being at a national gay and lesbian conference where we were talking about HIV, although it wasn't known as HIV in those days, and how communities around the country should be responding to what was being termed at the time in American publications as the gay plague.

My friends and comrades in the Victorian AIDS Council and my friends and comrades in the South Australian AIDS Council worked very closely together to deliver our campaigns around HIV and the communities impacted by this virus, not just gay men, of course, but people working in the sex industry and also others who would come into contact with the virus through injecting drug use and also, in the early days, through transmission through utilising blood or blood products.

I can advise the honourable member that, in fact, one of those contracts—I think one of three contracts—has been let to this joint partnership between SHine SA and the Victorian AIDS Council. I would say to her that, if she has any concerns, she should, perhaps next time she is visiting Melbourne, go and talk to the Victorian AIDS Council and reassure herself that this is an incredibly organised, incredibly well representative community organisation that grew out of the gay community itself and has great expertise in these areas—and I look forward to their involvement in South Australia delivering the program.