HIV Foundation Queensland loses funding

The HIV Foundation Queensland will not be funded after the end of its current agreement on 30 June, Health Minister Cameron Dick has announced.

Chair of the HIV Foundation Queensland, Dr Darren Russell, said the organisation has worked passionately to implement Queensland’s HIV strategy since its inception four years ago.

“At this stage of the HIV response, what is required is effective implementation like we have now,” he said. “It remains to be seen just how this is going to happen after June.”

The foundation was created by the Newman Government in 2013. It will now be replaced with a Sexual Health Ministerial Advisory Committee.

Healthy Communities, now the Queensland AIDS Council, was also defunded around the time of the HIV Foundation Queensland’s creation.

Paul Martin, then-executive director of Healthy Communities, criticised the move at the time.

“Healthy Communities was only funded to provide HIV, STI and hepatitis C prevention to gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men, with a range of other non-government organisations funded separately to work with other at-risk communities and Queensland Health charged with general community awareness,” he said.

“Will the Minister guarantee that all funds will in future only be used on gay men’s HIV prevention?”

At the time, Queensland was the only state in Australia without state government funding for its AIDS council.

Originally published as ‘HIV Foundation Queensland to shut down’.