Positive Life SA

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:57): This afternoon I would like to share with you some words that were spoken on the steps of parliament house a couple of weeks ago. Positive Life SA, often known as Pos Life, an organisation that is being shut down, held a rally to launch their so-called condom rescue, since SA Health will no longer fund their services. Geoff Hood, President of Pos Life, an organisation that has a board comprised 100 per cent of people living with HIV, had these words to say to the assembled crowd:

Thirty years ago, when Australia was in the grip of what was then known as 'the gay plague', or simply as AIDS, a few brave people started to speak up and change things. Most of those brave people are no longer with us: they are the ones who ensured that Australia had a peer-driven, community-based response to what we now call HIV AIDS. For 30 years this has been recognised globally as the best practice model for reducing HIV transmissions.

Our state government has now decided to dishonour the legacy of those courageous people by defunding Positive Life SA, the only community-based HIV organisation in South Australia. We have a state government that wants to silence community voice. It wants pretend that forming community advisory groups constitutes genuine consultation with the people most affected by its decisions.

PLSA has supported HIV positive people for more than 20 years. It has an impeccable financial record. It has met all its contractual obligations to SA Health. In spite of this, all government funding for HIV services has been hijacked by Centrecare Catholic Family Services and a bizarre partnership between the Victorian AIDS Council and SHine SA, previously known as family planning SA. How will a faith-based agency like Centrecare deliver impartial, non-discriminatory and supportive services?

This is Geoff Hood's question. He continues:

When did Victoria achieve zero HIV infections, making them the experts for South Australia?

In fact the most recent data from the Kirby Institute show that the transmission rate in Victoria is more than three times the SA rate. Victorian AIDS Council, fix your own backyard first!! We do not need more clinical services from a big, corporate organisation like SHine SA. As a gay man I can assure you that big is not always necessarily better. The quality of delivery is what is important.

Last year the Minister for Health, the Hon. Jack Snelling MP, along with all other state and territory ministers, signed the AIDS 2014 Legacy Statement. He has committed to working towards the virtual elimination of new Australian HIV transmissions by the end of 2020. Underpinning this Legacy Statement is the meaningful involvement of people living with HIV, in the development and delivery of HIV programs and policies. Now he has done a breathtaking backflip by defunding PLSA. His health bureaucrats are equally to blame for choosing this un-South Australian option for his approval. SA will now have the dubious distinction of being the first state or territory in Australia without a community-driven response to HIV.

As a member of the disability community, I strongly believe in the mantra 'Nothing about us without us'. I know that this is equally important to many living with HIV in South Australia. It is a great shame that people living with HIV will no longer have control over their own services and thereby their own destiny.