ACON, the Aids Council of NSW, has been awarded $7 million to produce a campaign for women’s cancer that does not acknowledge or use the word woman. The campaign is meant to target 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.

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.

Rather than using simple terms like “woman” ACON prefers to use language such as “people with a cervix” or “front hole”. Many women with English as a second language would be confused or offended by such language.

“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.

This level of publicly funded activism is unacceptable. 

How can the public have confidence in a government or health organisation that refuses to stick to basic facts or use common language?