The Albanese government has given a seven-figure contract to a LGBTQ group which produced a cancer campaign targeting women, using non-gendered language such as “people with a cervix”.
The federal government awarded a $7 million contract to a LGBTQ lobby group to produce a women’s cancer campaign using non-gendered language, despite the public health message meant primarily for Indigenous and migrant women.
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information reveal the Department of Health and Ageing granted the lucrative funding to ACON, which describes itself as NSW’s “leading HIV and LGBTQ+ health organisation”, without the contract going to tender.
The seven-figure deal was struck in spite of a quarter of women surveyed raising concerns about the use of “confusing” and “political” language in the campaign.
Sky News revealed in June the Commonwealth had poured $3.3 million into the radical body to develop the advertisements, as disclosed by the department in a response to a Question on Notice, leading the opposition to attack the government for funding the “erasure” of women.
An existing campaign from ACON uses terms such as “people with a cervix” instead of “women” and “front hole” as an alternative to “vagina”.
The latest documents expose the true cost of the contract as being more than twice the figure previously disclosed.
The contract was drawn up after ACON approached the department offering to roll out its current state-wide cancer campaign for a national LGBTQ audience for the comparatively modest $533,600.
Instead, the department countered with an offer more than 13 times as high, to expand the campaign to a broader market.
“First Nations women” and “culturally and linguistically diverse women” were meant to be the primary audiences, while LGBTIQ+ women – including non-binary or trans men who may not identify with the term “woman” – were only identified as secondary audiences, along with women in remote and regional areas.
The documents show the department was provided advice from health care professionals suggesting Indigenous women were most likely to be encouraged to screen if messaging used “clear and simple language” which avoided an over-emphasis on medical or body terminology such as the word “cervix”.
“Many people may not know this word or use it in their vocabulary,” the research warned.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer and have a mortality rate 3.8 times that of non-Indigenous Australians.
Migrant women are more likely to have never been screened or be overdue for screening compared to Australian-born women.
Liberal Senator for Tasmania Claire Chandler said taxpayers should be concerned by the spend.
“I don’t think any Australian would think it’s reasonable that the government is giving $7 million to an organisation to run a campaign that was originally meant to increase the awareness of Indigenous women and culturally-diverse women and women in regional and remote areas, to instead just focus on this very exclusive language that completely erases what it means to be a woman by referring to ‘people with a cervix’,” Senator Chandler said.
“The government absolutely has questions to answer here of why it thought that it was appropriate to fund a campaign looking like this to start with.”
A survey conducted by ACON, the results of which were provided to the department, found one in four women had provided critical feedback regarding the terminology used in the advertisements, specifically the phrase “if you have a cervix” instead of the term “women”.
“Many women do not know what a cervix is,” said one respondent.
“They are excluded from [knowing] this vital health information.”
Another complained the term may confuse women for whom English is a second language or those without detailed anatomical knowledge, adding “it would have been more effective and less dehumanising to refer to female people or women”.
Yet another example read: “There’s a political agenda in the way of a health message. That’s irresponsible. Stop it.”
ACON dismissed all the criticism as “likely influenced by third-party activism”.
“I would have thought that if even ACON is admitting that a quarter of the people who are viewing their campaigns are confused by them, then absolutely the government should have been asking questions as to whether this organisation is the right organisation to be running a campaign to increase women’s awareness,” Senator Chandler said.
She also raised concerns over the awarding of the contract months before the department was rewarded by ACON with Gold Tier Employer status at its 2024 Australian LGBTQ+ Inclusion Awards.
The advertising campaign is part of a $10.2 million commitment by the government to promote cervical self-collection to under-screened women.
ACON is one of four partners delivering the campaign with the department, alongside the Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative.
However, ACON received the bulk of the funding, contracted to both expand its 2023 campaign and conduct all the media buying.
A department spokesman said its own independent research found ACON’s campaign was the “most popular” of many cervical cancer screening campaigns shown to Indigenous and culturally-diverse audiences.
“It was determined that adopting and adapting ACON’s successful Own It campaign – rather than starting from scratch on a new campaign – represented good value for money in delivering a national campaign, would meet required timeframes, and would communicate successfully with the key target audiences,” the spokesman said.
He said the LGBTQ+ Inclusion Awards assessed the department’s inclusivity in its own workplace, and was in no way linked to external funding and initiatives.
An ACON spokesman said specialist Indigenous and multicultural creative agencies were appointed to help adapt the campaign for their respective communities.
He said extensive testing was done with intended audiences in English and other languages, including with Indigenous and multicultural groups.
“The materials use language that testing showed would be easily understood and would encourage people to test for cervical cancer,” the spokesman said.
Source: Skynews