Everybody hurts: TAC at 20
It’s 20 years tonight since the first shock TV advertisements by Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission were aired. Visitors from overseas are often surprised at the brutality of these adverts, which have been credited with a 50% reduction of the Victorian road toll over the last two decades.
This montage will be screened tonight at 8:30pm on all free-to-air channels in Victoria. It’s quite graphic in parts but gives an indication of the types of campaigns that have been run.
You’re gay? Prove it!
(This posting goes on a bit. Sorry about that.)
Some time ago I wrote a cranky email to Senator Chris Evans, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, in response to media reports that a Bangladeshi couple may have to have sex in front of witnesses to prove they are gay, as they had claimed on their refugee visa application.
This is the same Senator Chris Evans I wrote about last year, when I called him ‘Australia’s best immigration minister in a dozen years’.
When I heard about what these two Bangladeshi fellows were going through, I felt a bit cranky. When I read the history of the case as outlined in the published findings of the Federal Court appeal on 18 September 2009, I was incensed.
World AIDS Day launch
These are my remarks for the launch of World AIDS Day 2009 this morning at Parliament House in Melbourne.
Since its inception in 1988, World AIDS Day has provided a moment for all of us to reflect on the impact HIV has had in our lives and communities, to recommit ourselves to ending the HIV epidemic, and to remind the broader community that, while HIV may have almost disappeared from the headlines, it is still with us.
