Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in recognition of World AIDS Day 2013, which took place on 1 December. It is a sad but harsh reality that, in the world today, 35 million people are living with AIDS. What makes this statistic even more harrowing is that 10 per cent of those people are under the age of 15. While HIV is no longer regarded as a death sentence and in many cases is a manageable illness, particularly with access to medication and treatment and if people have the opportunity to have a healthy lifestyle, the access to that treatment and healthy lifestyle that we sometimes take for granted is not available to many of those 35 million people.

We have moved a long way since the 1980s. I had the privilege in the early eighties, if I may mention it briefly, of working with a young woman who was diagnosed with HIV following a blood transfusion. It is no longer the case that HIV is transmitted that way, but I walked the journey with her until she passed away in the mid-nineties. I watched her and her family and was able to provide them with support. Back then they were treated with disdain. I remember there was a lot of secrecy and discrimination and misunderstanding about how it was transmitted. We have moved a long way.

My family also have close connections in particular with our nearest neighbour, PNG. It is on that nation that I want to focus and make some comments about today. On my frequent visits I have seen firsthand the devastation that AIDS causes not only to individuals but to families and in fact whole clans. Several years ago there were predictions that as many as one in 20 of PNG's population of seven million could become infected with HIV, amid signs that the disease was spreading unchecked across parts of the Highlands region. Now the epidemic is being contained. Most of those infected are receiving lifesaving treatment and health workers are optimistic that this can be reduced to another manageable public health challenge.

While the spread of the virus is being checked, its management still poses a formidable public health challenge. Almost 12,000 adults and children were undergoing treatment last year, compared with about 9,500 in 2011. The national infection rate is estimated to have stabilised at about 0.83 per cent of the population, with higher rates in some Highlands provinces and Port Moresby's national capital district.

One of the greatest concerns in particular is highly vulnerable women in PNG. There are a growing number of women who are driven to sell sex casually to survive, particularly single women with no support or married women who have been abandoned. This is of great concern. But there has been some success, particularly achieved in the management of HIV among mothers and children. With better treatment and better education programs the incidence of mother-to-child transmission has been greatly reduced in PNG, with about 400 children having received treatment. Part of Australia's annual aid budget of $500 million to PNG is supporting local government efforts to provide antiretroviral treatment, with 80 per cent of eligible adults expected to be receiving the drugs by 2015. But there is much more work to be done.

There is also a challenge in our own nation. In Australia there are an estimated 25,000 people with HIV. A total of 1,253 cases of HIV infection were newly diagnosed in 2012, a 10 per cent increase on 2011. The annual number of new HIV diagnoses has gradually increased over the past 13 years, from 724 diagnoses in 1999. In New South Wales there has been a surge in HIV cases—up 24 per cent between 2011 and 2012. We need to ensure that people who live with HIV-AIDS can participate fully in the life of the community, free from stigma and discrimination. Two reports in 2012 revealed that more than half of the people with HIV have had their status disclosed without their permission. It is often the case that friends or even colleagues reveal someone's HIV status without that person's knowledge. Every human deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. We have an opportunity to reach out to those who are living with HIV and celebrate them for who they are and the contribution they make to our society. Today, along with a number of my colleagues, I support this motion.

See this speech in context