Health org rejects Katter Party claims on safe-sex ad funding

LGBT health and wellbeing organisation Healthy Communities has rebuked Bob Katter's Australian Party for attempting to link last year’s Rip & Roll safe-sex poster campaign to allegations of inappropriate government spending by LNP leader Campbell Newman.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Aidan McLindon, state leader of Australian Party, claimed that while Newman was the city’s Lord Mayor, Brisbane City Council provided grants of $100,000 to Healthy Communities specifically for the ads.

The posters, which promoted a safe-sex message, received national media coverage last year after an orchestrated campaign by the Australian Christian Lobby to have them removed failed.

“This ad was the most complained about ad in 2011 and that is because Queensland parents were extremely unhappy that their children were subjected to this offensive advertising," McLindon said.

“It is very disappointing that LNP Leader Campbell Newman chose to back this ad rather than supporting Queensland families.

“It is wrong that he demanded concerned Queensland families tolerate this advertising which was directed at their children in bus stops.”

Healthy Communities executive director Paul L Martin rejected the claims, adding that that he failed to understand McLindon’s motives for making such baseless assertions.

“No Brisbane City Council money was used in any way on the Rip & Roll campaign.

“We are deeply saddened by the nasty and vindictive position of Katter’s Australian Party in trying to roll back the human rights of Queenslanders,” Martin said.

“Healthy Communities has received one-off grants from Brisbane City Council for a number of projects over the past few years, focusing on support to LGBT seniors, recording the history of LGBT Brisbane and helping make adaptations to our premises to make it more environmentally friendly.”

The Rip & Roll campaign was funded by Queensland Health as part of a state-wide program of HIV prevention and health promotion.

All complaints about the campaign to the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) were rejected, with the regulatory body noting in its decision that the campaign was “clearly in the context of a health prevention strategy and not sexualised without reason”.

Overnight, in response to the attacks, Newman told a forum organised by the Australian Christian Lobby that while he was not “a wowser” he would campaign to ensure advertising in public places was “G-rated”.

The man tipped to be the state’s next premier also then once again suggested that an LNP-elected government would reverse the civil unions legislation only recently introduced in Queensland, BrisbaneTimes.com.au reports.

“The answer is that if we’re elected we’ll certainly look at that, it may not be possible though – we don’t want to put people in a legal limbo,” he said.

“We have not changed [our position] one iota over the last three months that this issue has been around.”