PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
HANDOVER OF THE EVALUATION OF THE NATIONAL HIV/ AIDS
STRATEGY, PARLIAMENT HOUSE
CANBERRA, 27 SEPTEMBER 1995
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On your behalf, and on behalf of the Commonwealth, I would like to thank
Professor Feachem for the outstanding work he has done in preparing this
Evaluation of the National HIV/ AIDS Strategy.
Professor Feachem has been assisted in his work by dedicated officers of the
Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health, who also
deserve our thanks.
After more than a decade of intensive policy-making, and the completion of
two national HIV/ AIDS strategies, it is very useful to have an expert and
knowledgeable outsider critically assess our achievements and our
shortcomings. An independent evaluation is vital if public confidence is to be maintained in
the essential principles of the national HIV/ AIDS policy. And as Chief Health
Adviser to the World Bank, Professor Feachem is well qualified to provide an
assessment. In preparing his Evaluation, Professor Feachem has travelled extensively and
consulted widely.
Many of the groups and organisations with whom Professor Feachem has
reviewed Australia's HIV/ AIDS policies are represented here today.
There are representatives of the State and Federal political parties, senior
State and Federal bureaucrats, health professionals, academics, indigenous
Australians, the State and Territory AIDS Councils and the Commonwealth's
formal HIV/ AIDS advisory bodies.
Professor Feachem's report brings to the Government all your views. It
brings the views of the Haemophilia Foundation Australia, and the bodies
grouped around the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations the
National Association of People Living With HIV/ AIDS, the Scarlet Alliance,
the Australian IV League.
The views of Australians living with HIV/ AIDS are perhaps the most important
of all because they are, in all senses, closest to the daily challenges of the
epidemic. Since 1982, their strong and distinctive voices of people have helped shape
our national HIV/ AIDS policies.
People living with HIV/ AIDS could be excused for concentrating solely on
personal and family concerns.
But they haven't. Over the past decade, people with HIV/ AIDS have
transcended their circumstances, and the daily burden of coping with the
virus, to make often outstanding contributions to our HIV/ AIDS policies not
to mention the general life of the nation.
We can learn something from their bravery. And even as we show our
support for them, we can derive strength from them.
As Professor Feachem has outlined this morning, Australia's response to
HIV/ AIDS is recognised as being amongst the best in the world.
A decade of hard and unremitting effort in this country has resulted in a
welcome reduction in the rates of incidence of both HIV and AIDS.
In per capita terms, we are in a much better position regarding HIV infection
than, for example, Canada, France, the United States, Spain and Switzerland.
And as we look to the future Australia also seems to have passed the peak
incidence of AIDS infection, while the United Kingdom and the United States
appear to be experiencing continuing increases.
So we can be quietly pleased to have done relatively well in the fight against
HIV/ AIDS.
However, while ever the virus is amongst us, there can be no room for selfsatisfaction
or complacency.
There are presently some 14,700 people living with HIV/ AIDS. And a much
larger number know people and love people afflicted with the virus.
People living with HIV/ AIDS are members of the Australian family.
They are workers in factories and players in orchestras. They are teachers in
schools and students in universities; they are clerks and journalists and
artists and labourers and lawyers. They are fathers and sons and brothers.
We enjoy and profit from the things they create.
HIV/ AIDS affects us all in our families, our workplaces and our communities.
In a sense, we are all living with the virus.
HIV infection has cost Australia dearly and not only in human terms.
In one year alone, 1992-93, the cost of providing treatment and care was
$ 130 million.
In the same year, the total indirect cost from earnings lost because of
HIV/ AIDS illness and death was estimated at $ 313 million.
I am convinced the human and financial cost would have been even greater if
not for the partnership which has been forged between governments, the
medical, scientific and caring professions, and the affected communities.
Community involvement and consultation in decision-making has ensured
that our actions have generally been well-founded, well-directed and wellexecuted.
Where delicate balances have had to be struck, we have always engaged the
public in dialogue.
Some who were opposed to the shape of our policies claimed that, if the
treatment of HIV/ AIDS was to be met effectively, we had to choose to protect
either general, or individual, rights. They believed that the protection of the
community could only be ensured by imposing sanctions, controls and
ultimately isolation upon those most at risk of HIV infection.
Our experience so far has demonstrated the opposite the greater the
protection we afford to individual rights and responsibilities, the greater the
benefit to the entire Australian community.
At all times, the Commonwealth Government has acted in the firm belief that
our paramount consideration must be the health and well being of the
Australian people.
No sectional or political consideration has ever, or will ever, stand in the way
of the Government taking whatever steps are necessary to contain the spread
of H IV/ AIDS.
However, our achievements to date as recorded in the Evaluation Report
demonstrate that the best results are achieved by consultation, not coercion.
Within the Federal Parliament, the spirit of bipartisanship will, I trust, continue
to guide the deliberations of the Parliamentary Liaison Group on AIDS.
This Group provides the best forum in which to resolve the differences that
inevitably arise during the preparation of public education campaigns which
involve the frank discussion of human behaviour.
Nevertheless, this Government will never shrink from the need to work with
and through the communities most affected by this virus.
We owe this duty of care to our fellow citizens, and to our children.
As we look ahead, there is little prospect of the early development and
distribution of effective vaccines or cures for HIV/ AIDS, despite the welcome
developments in combination treatments of HIV infection.
And there are some disturbing signs, including some in the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander communities.
And, of course, every year sees the emergence of a new group of young
Australians who may be exposed to risk of infection.
So we cannot lose our resolve, or drop our pace. It is clear to the
Government that there remains an overwhelming need for a national
HIV/ AIDS strategy.
I am pleased to announce that, as recommended by Professor Feachem, the
Commonwealth Government will support the establishment of a Third
National HIV/ AIDS Strategy, with dedicated, secure and adequate funding for
five years.
As Professor Feachem has reported, the four key elements of the Strategy
are: education and prevention;
treatment and care;
research; and
international assistance and cooperation.
The detailed components of the Third National Strategy will be decided upon
after consideration of the recommendations contained within the Evaluation,
discussions between all governments, and consultation with non-government
organisations and the general public.
These processes must be conducted responsibly but also quickly.
The over-riding objectives of the Third National Strategy must be:
to care for those affected by HIV/ AIDS;
to conduct further research into the nature of the virus and its
transmission; to redouble efforts to prevent new infections within the national territory
of Australia; and
to assist in the international effort to contain the spread of the virus,
particularly within the Asia-Pacific region.
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is tragic to think of the people Australia has lost to HIV/ AIDS and with
those people, all of their energy and creativity and strength.
It is important to remember the lives we have lost.
But it is also important to remember the lives we have saved through
intelligent government policies and generous community cooperation.
I think Australians can derive some measure of pride from the way we have
fought this virus. In the best Australian tradition, we have shown our belief in
practical, constructive measures.
We have stuck together as Australians.
And in that spirit we should go forward.
Thank you.