The CEO of LGBTQ+ organisation ACON on inclusivity

The ACON chief executive’s work has taken him from the dark days of the HIV/AIDS crisis into a new era.

Nicholas Parkhill, CEO of NSW-based LGBTQ+ health organisation ACON. Picture: WISH/Nic Walker

It’s been a year since Nicholas Parkhill was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) at the annual Australia Day honours, but the emotion of that moment still sits close to the surface. “I was overwhelmed,” says Parkhill, who immediately tears up as he thinks back to it. “Completely overwhelmed and completely honoured.”

While quick to joke that he wears his heart on his sleeve (“Ask anyone, I cry in staff meetings,” he laughs), there’s no doubting that this national recognition, one of the highest order, for his 20-plus years of service, education, and advocacy in the health sector in particular for people living with HIV, is one that touched Parkhill deeply. “At the time, I kind of thought, ‘Is this really happening?’ But there’s a lot of people who go into every success that ACON has, so I think [the award] was a reflection more on that collective effort and for that to be recognised was really lovely and really overwhelming.”

It’s a rare and charming trait, this genuine humility, but it’s equally true that the award was well deserved. Parkhill’s passion for developing strategies that are embedded in connecting with community have revolutionised the health sector, in particularly sexual health and the lives of the LGBTQ+ community.

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“Being a gay man and very much part of this community and seeing the impact that it (HIV) was having, was certainly a driver for me.”

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Since 2009 Parkhill has been the CEO of NSW-based LGBTQ+ health organisation ACON – a not-for-profit group established in the ’80s to help educate and provide support for those living with HIV. Since those more single-focus early days, and in particular as a result of Parkhill’s vision and steering, ACON has evolved to become a broad church of health services that range from sex, psychology and relationships to collaborating with companies to create safe, healthy workplaces that thrive with diversity. Under his guidance and determination, it has transformed from a local, Sydney-based operation into a globally recognised organisation known for its groundbreaking work on HIV and sexual health promotion. Locally, while still considered a NSW-centric operation, ACON remains the benchmark for sexual health support within the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think we’re increasingly a national organisation,” Parkhill tells WISH. “For instance, our programs are national. And we have staff in Melbourne, Western Australia, Brisbane.”

Before he was named CEO, Parkhill had already worked closely with the ACON team back in the ’90s as a campaign officer just as new treatments for those living with HIV were hitting the market. It was, for those who can recall, a life-changing decade for many gay and queer men. It’s a moment in history that’s literally written on the walls of the room we’re sitting in.

Nicholas Parkhill photographed in Rose Bay, Sydney. Picture: Nic Walker

For our interview, Parkhill has booked one of the meeting rooms inside ACON’s Surry Hills headquarters. Gently buzzing with activity, the office feels more like an immersive archive of ACON’s history as a progressive, sex-positive and heath-supportive organisation. Posters about safe sex facts and stats adorn the walls, and various campaigns throughout the decades create a timeline of ACON’s multiple successes.

For anyone from the LGBTQ+ community who grew up in Sydney during the ’80s and ’90s, many of these will be all too familiar. There are the campaigns created in collaboration with queer artist David McDiarmid, the infamous “Slip It On” poster: a graphic, fluoro-hued banana inside a condom. This colourful, even joyful, approach to messaging around safer sex is a far cry from the infamously terrifying Grim Reaper advertisement of the late ’80s from Grey Advertising.

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Does Parkhill, who came of age during this period, think that commercial contributes to some of the stigma that still surrounds HIV today? Yes, he says, in a way. But ever the professional, he’s also reflective about the advertisement’s cultural legacy.

“I think on one level the Grim Reaper advertisement worked incredibly effectively in putting HIV/AIDS on the agenda for all Australians and keeping it alive as a pressing policy issue that needed to be dealt with, and dealt with quickly,” he tells WISH. “What it did though was create a level of stigma and discrimination for people who were living with HIV, and also for those populations at greatest risk for HIV – gay men, sex workers and injecting drug users. And that stigma and discrimination has continued to play out over the years and it’s really hard to break that down.”

The push to move into health, and in particular sexual health for gay men, came from the experiences of these traumatic years – the personal was, in Parkhill’s world, the pathway to making positive change on behalf of his community. “I lost a lot of people I loved, and was very close with, to HIV,” says Parkhill. This was, he recounts, in the early days of the epidemic before effective treatments had made their way to Australia. “This personal connection, also being a gay man and very much part of this community and seeing the impact that it was having, was certainly a driver for me.”

After graduating from university, Parkhill began working with NSW Health on its mental health and drug and alcohol policies, and worked for the Department of Premier and Cabinet around the NSW Drug Summit back in 1999. This intersection of human rights with good health outcomes became the focus of his work, something that he sees as integral to the role of ACON. “I think the issues ACON deals with among marginalised population groups, sexual practices, drug and alcohol use, those issues fascinate me, and particularly at a community level and a population level. So ACON was where I was in my career after working in health policy on those particular areas, the issues that ACON was dealing with.”

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“Nic really embodies that goal of inclusivity, that health is for all of us,” says former colleague Mark Orr.

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Parkhill’s former colleague, Mark Orr, who joined the ACON board the same year Parkhill started as director of operations, in 2006, before becoming president in 2008, says Parkhill was instrumental in ACON’s modern evolution as an organisation. Not just for the LGBTQ+ community, but for anyone seeking assistance with sexual and mental health.

“In 2006, nearly the whole focus was HIV prevention, care and support,” says Orr. “There’s been a huge amount of work done around the trans and gender diverse community, particularly in the past few years. ACON really has opened up to more diversity. And not just sex and gender, but culture. Which it wasn’t when Nic came in. It was doing a good job, but Nic’s led the organisation quite successfully and brought everybody along.

“[Being made a Member of the Order of Australia] was an amazing recognition from the country for Nic’s passionate commitment to public health and community driven and led health responses in the LGBTQ+ sector. Nic really embodies that goal of inclusivity, that health is for all of us. In spite of the challenges that are thrown up at Nic and ACON regularly, he continues on that pathway with an unflinching focus on the health and wellbeing of everyone in our community.”

That switch from fear-based campaigns à la the Grim Reaper to one built on hope, community and inclusivity is just the tip of the iceberg in paradigm shifts that Parkhill has both experienced and overseen during his time at ACON. Asked to pick which he considers the most impactful, he struggles. There have been the leaps and bounds in better treatment for people living with HIV. “Going back to the mid-’90s when effective HIV treatment came online and we saw in a matter of months people who were sick and dying now living healthy, happy lives, being restored to their full health, that was extraordinary. That was perhaps the biggest game changer of them all.”

More recently, it was the research and promotion of PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, that inhibits the risk of passing on or contracting HIV to almost zero, and the subsequent slow but sure destigmatisation of HIV within the community.

Culturally, it was the marriage equality win that Parkhill considers to be among the brightest moments. Yes, he says, there’s still much more to do to ensure all members of the LGBTQ+ community feel accepted and safe, especially trans people, which is an increasing area of focus for ACON, but it was a pivotal moment nonetheless. “As gruelling and as challenging and as distressing as the plebiscite was, I think where we landed was a really good outcome,” he says. “If there was a silver lining to that plebiscite, it forced Australia as a country almost to have a reckoning with how it saw itself and a fair go for all of those issues. So I think marriage equality really shifted the dial in terms of acceptance and greater understanding and awareness of the lives of LGBTQ+ Australians.”

It wasn’t without its cost though, he says. One that is ongoing in the media and politics under the guise of a vague culture war propelled by conservative think tanks around gender. Despite all the representation appearing on our screens, in magazines and in books, Parkhill says that for a young person struggling with their sexuality, or their gender, the psychological impact of these so-called debates can’t be underestimated.

“I still think there’s a sense of isolation and otherness,” he tells WISH. “Whether you are gay, lesbian, trans, that still that exists, that otherness and separation. All those debates we still see playing out in the media can be so detrimental. That’s why when we see big public debates around identity politics, particularly around trans, around young queer kids in schools and whether they should be allowed to attend, they can have a really serious impact on individuals’ mental health.”

Picture: WISH/Nic Walker

Now 51, Parkhill has experienced first hand how the tides of modern public opinion can change rapidly in some ways and remain the same in many others. On a personal level, his own story of coming out with his family was, he recounts, smooth sailing for the most part.

“My older brother’s gay so he’d come out beforehand and in a way that made things somewhat easier,” he explains. “But the way I came out was, I’d just finished university and at that time the Australian government had an exchange with the US government where you could get a Green Card for three months as soon as you finished studying and go and work in the States for three months. After travelling through the US, landing in San Francisco where he met his first love, Parkhill eventually made his way home. “I think it was a matter of 48 hours after getting off that plane before saying, ‘Okay, I’m love and I want to move back to San Francisco and love and live.’ That never happened, of course, but yeah, that was sort of my coming out story.”

His age bracket also puts him at a particular junction of gay Sydney history. While we both lament the loss of many of Sydney’s most iconic night spots (The Albury, the Green Park Hotel, The Flinders Hotel… the list of gay-friendly venues and queer spaces that have closed is long), Parkhill is confident that Sydney can get its shine back. Will it be the same? Of course not. But it will be what’s right for the next generation of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think there are plenty of spaces now where you can go where diversity is going to be much greater. And that’s good. That’s a sign of a really strong, healthy community. I also think WorldPride will be something altogether different from what we see on a normal weekend in Sydney, and it will probably be different from what we saw at the Gay Games [in 2000], or even what we see during a normal Mardi Gras. I think the activations that are being planned in and around Oxford Street, the kind of village atmosphere, the street parties – I have no doubt all the pubs and clubs and the restaurants will be activated to absolutely make the most of that.”

This story appeared in The Pride Issue of WISH, which celebrates the game-changers who are shaping Australia into a more diverse and inclusive society.