As we all know, HIV-AIDS threatens the wellbeing of communities and individuals, and has economic ramifications for developing countries in particular and indeed continents such as Africa, where HIV-AIDS has reached epidemic proportions. In South-East Asia, HIV-AIDS is posing a major threat to our neighbours as they struggle to contain the alarming rate of infection that is sweeping through their communities.
There are some 7.4 million people living with HIV in the Asia-Pacific region, with 3,000 new infections per day. At a global level, 4.9 million new HIV infections have been recorded this year alone, with 39.4 million people living with HIV-AIDS. Sadly, 17.6 million of those are women. Again, sadly, 3.1 million deaths have been recorded in 2004.
This is no doubt an issue of international concern, and I have to agree with the statements that the Prime Minister made at the APEC summit. He said:
”…You've got to have very clear and unambiguous leadership at a government level about what has to be done.”
As I said, I agree with the Prime Minister, but I am also a little concerned that some of this `unambiguous leadership' is not being extended to the situation of HIV-AIDS sufferers here in Australia. Unfortunately, here at home we have state government arrangements and inconsistent federal approaches that are a shambles and have allowed infection rates in Australia to rise sharply in recent years. Last year, another 780 Australians were diagnosed with the virus—a 13 per cent jump on the 690 who tested positive in 1999, a year considered to be a low point.
It is fine for the Prime Minister to be overseas, making contributions and lecturing on HIV-AIDS, but back home his government's own Medicare benefits schedule does not pay for HIV-AIDS testing, despite repeated efforts and lobbying by the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations and the Victorian AIDS Council. When a person visits their local GP in order to have a test, they are required to pay approximately $25 for the pathology costs. If you cannot get a bulk-billing doctor—and in recent times that is increasingly so—then you have to consider whether the GP's consultation fee becomes an issue.
In Victoria there were some 202,679 HIV tests performed in 2002, resulting in 234 HIV diagnoses. Of those tests, only 6,043 were paid for by the Victorian state government, funded in part by the public health outcomes funding agreement. Therefore, the vast majority of these tests were paid for by the patient up front. Clearly, the cost of having these tests is becoming a financial burden for many Australians, especially for those who are in the high-risk group and who are required to have tests on at least a three-monthly basis. As a result, many of them are opting out of the testing regime and therefore posing a problem with detection and, as a consequence, containment of HIV-AIDS. That is possibly why infection rates are rising in Australia.
You have to ask how this can constitute national leadership when the government has not acted on the recommendations of the fourth National HIV-AIDS Strategy, which expired on 30 June this year. How can the Prime Minister be leading by example when there is at least a six-month gap between the expired fourth national strategy and the fifth National HIV-AIDS Strategy, which will not take effect until well after 1 January 2005? Department of Health and Ageing officials have admitted that the strategy is months behind schedule and may not even meet the 1 January 2005 deadline.
If the government were serious about national leadership, I presume the Minister for Health and Ageing would have come into the House today, World AIDS Day, and announced that HIV testing would immediately be placed on the Medicare benefits schedule. This is a critical issue. It is certainly an issue that is of concern to people in the community, and I call on the government to reconsider its position and make HIV testing available to all.
