OPEN LETTER TO THE MINISTER

Dr Sir Puka Temu - Minister for Community Development

Congratulations on your appointment as Minister. You have a hard act to follow in the commitment of Dame Carol Kidu. She has worked long and hard during her term of office in support of women and children.

I am pleased that I know you and am able to exchange a friendly greeting when we meet on the street.

In recent times, AIDS Holistics has found itself on the other side of the fence to Dame Carol but that was not to deny the advances made during her time. We expressed another view on the decriminalizing of gay and lesbian sex and prostitution.

This is not to say that we wanted gays, lesbians and transsexuals to be arrested and gaoled. That does not happen anyway any more than a village man can still be arrested and charged with assault for talking to a white woman. It is all past history.

Decriminalizing gay and lesbian sex and sex work is the thin edge of the wedge in a world wide agenda for legalizing gay and lesbian single-sex marriage, adoption of children by gays and lesbians and down-grading the importance of marriage and family.

When we consider sex work, we think of young girls. That is only part of the picture. This also involves legalizing sex work of men and boys.

AIDS Holistics promotes Positive Living and the importance of family. For this reason, we have always been close to the welfare officers of the Department for Community Development.

Welfare officers are generally kind and caring people who do their very best for family and seek to break up family only as the very last resort.

They have taught us much about the art of listening in counseling without judgment. There is very little that they need by way of welfare advice from overseas advisors.

Welfare officers have much to offer the nation in their mandate to uphold the family. AIDS Holistics has always taken the approach that family is the key to the national HIV/AIDS response. For this we have been seriously opposed by overseas advisors.

There has been a tendency for foreign advisors to focus on the rights of women and children and the violence of men. That is only part of the picture.

Only recently we read a new outlook expressed by United Nations officers that gender equity involves men and women working together side by side.

This policy is coming forward with the prospect of the 22 seats reserved for women in parliament. It is an improvement on the anti-family, anti-man and anti-marriage outlook of the UN and AusAID in the past.

We look forward to continuing involvement with welfare officers and positive interaction with your Department. I do wish the newspapers would get your precedence right. Dr Sir Puka Temu. It is the same as General Sir Thomas Blamey. It even sounds right.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Copeland BA BEdSt

AIDS HOLISTICS