“My mother once came and told me that she didn't know if Mick and I had sex but that if we had a loving sort of relationship then good — but she thought I was still a bit young for it”, a 16-year-old Canberra girl — let's call her Jane — said.

She lit a cigarette. A budding woman-of-the-world who seemed to know a bit about life and its facts.

But after admitting she had been having sexual intercourse with her boyfriend of almost a year, she said she was not on the pill, nor used any contraceptive.