Sat, April 4, 2009 4:26 pm

TO: helen.shardey @ parliament.vic.gov.au

cc: peter.ryan @ parliament.vic.gov.au
ted.baillieu @ parliament.vic.gov.au

Dear Ms Shardey,

I am writing to you to express support for your call for the resignation of the Health Minister Daniel Andrews. To this end, Fagmedia has a front page article which states our support for your call and includes the following:

"Fagmedia believes that in order to protect the integrity of the Position of Health Minister, Mr Andrews should resign IMMEDIATELY... Fagmedia´s point is that After 10 Years of ALP "Rule" in Victoria there is no-one to blame AND it is clear in Victoria the trains don´t work, the education system is falling apart and worst of all no-one we have spoken to, who has been a patient in a Victorian hospital, has had a good experience."

I have spoken to a large number of people who have been in hospitals and it is clear that they function as well as the trains. I have heard stories of people spending more than 24 hours in emergency at the Alfred, a patient treated at Colac who said that nurses continually had to be told to wear gloves when dealing with wounds, Food being inedible at the Alfred, stories that casual nurses are only interested in signing on and signing off and thus mistakes are made with medication dispensing and the notes "covered up"!

And on and on the stories go. Worse the complaint is that if you make a complaint then the facility just goes on a cover up rather than fix the problems. Patients spoken to by Fagmedia have stated that formal written complaints lodged with the Alfred and the Epworth in 2008 and Jan 2009 have just been ignored by those hospitals!

In the past Gay and Lesbian Organisations have been more likely to express support for the ALP but I believe that times are changing. The people behind Fagmedia believe that the ALP have done nothing to deserve a mortgage on the Queer vote.

Further, in regards to STI and HIV infections. Rates of infections seem to keep going up. Why is this so? At the moment there seems to a sole focus on condom promotion in the context of anal sex and clearly this is only one type of prevention and the figures suggest it is not working!

Young people spoken to Fagmedia say they feel pressured into anal sex by the culture promoted by AIDS organisations. Others feel that lifesyle sexual promiscuity is being promoted by the AIDS Councils as much as condoms! We wonder why broad comprehensive strategies are not being implemented that include, for example risk minimisation through partner reduction, doing things other than anal sex, and encouraging relationships as a way of decreasing the high risk moments!

Fagmedia believes that if Government were to support same sex relationship recognition that a flow on effect would be that there would be a decrease in STI and HIV infections which would save money in terms of public health.

In terms of votes, if the Liberal/National Party were to develop a Same Sex Relationships Recognition policy, especially in the lead up to the next state election, then a significant number of GLBTIQ people who are regular ALP voters would switch their vote to the Liberal/ National Coalition.

Fagmedia is putting our money where our mouths are on these matters as evidenced by the jpg ads attached. Fagmedia is an international online community that has members from Australia, USA, UK, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Japan etc.

With best wishes,

James Rendell
President
Fagmedia.com

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