Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion, noting World Suicide Prevention Day, provides an opportunity for this parliament to acknowledge the grief that we feel across our community about those we have lost to suicide and to share the responsibility of preventing further suicides. Modelling released in September of this year by Suicide Prevention Australia shows that suicide rates will grow by up to 40 per cent over the next 10 years without better prevention and earlier intervention. The government has the full support of Labor to bring about that better prevention and earlier intervention.

The Morrison government's target of reducing suicide to zero, along with the appointment of Ms Christine Morgan as National Suicide Prevention Adviser to the Prime Minister, is commendable. Like all other Labor members, I look forward to working with Suicide Prevention Australia and members of the government to bring about this ambition of zero suicide. There is of course much to be done by all of us in this chamber and across the community working together to achieve it.

Recommendations in the newly released National Mental Health Commission's 2019 report on mental health and suicide prevention reform are an excellent starting point for the work we need to get on with together, such as the collection of high-quality data, particularly on the scope of disorders and high-risk community groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; undertaking a mental health service gaps analysis and implementing a National Mental Health Commission workforce strategy; addressing the broader social and economic factors that contribute to mental illness and suicide; fixing the NDIS so that streamlined access for people with psychosocial disability is working and continuing to deliver support for those who are ineligible for the NDIS; and making sure that all relevant government departments—Health, Education, Justice, Social Services, and Housing—are responsible for the design and implementation of all future national suicide prevention strategies.

While suicide doesn't always occur with mental illness, experts tell us that vulnerable individuals who have an accumulation of adverse life events and are experiencing mental illness are particularly vulnerable to taking their own life. Each year, around 950,000 young Australians aged 12 to 25 will be affected by a mental health issue. Nationally, there are 110 headspace centres that support young people to strengthen their wellbeing and manage their mental health. We are very proud of the Frankston headspace, in my electorate of Dunkley, which is operated by YSAS. It delivers support for young people in the areas not just of mental health but of physical health, drug and alcohol, and work and study support, including through a youth health clinic staffed by local GPs, a GPs in schools program at McClelland College and Mornington Secondary College, and Peninsula Pride, which is a Queer Straight Alliance youth program funded through the Victorian state government's Healthy Equal Youth project that aims to raise awareness, promote diversity, eliminate stigma and discrimination and improve the overall mental health of young LGBTIQA+ people in our community.

While headspaces across the country, like ours in Frankston, encourage resilience in young people today and every day, it is important also to note the unmet demand for youth mental health services. Headspace has assisted 520,000 young people since it was established in 2006, but we know that close to a million Australians aged 12 to 25 will face a mental health challenge each year. The majority of young people with mental health difficulties do not access services, and that's something that we need to change.

We're working in my community to do that. On 2 October, the Mental Health Foundation of Australia held a Youth Suicide and Mental Health Forum in Frankston. I was fortunate to be on the speaking panel, with Professor Richard Newton, the clinical director of Peninsula Mental Health Service, whose keynote speech was informative and challenging, and I'm grateful to him for providing me with a lot of the data that he relied on, and which I am relying on today. We have high rates in our area of people presenting to ED with self-harm. We have high rates, unfortunately, of people committing suicide and we have a number of young people who have killed themselves who are connected, but we are working hard in my community to support programs to address this. One of those programs is THRIVE, which is a commitment to ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of every member of the school communities of Elisabeth Murdoch College, Langwarrin Primary, Langwarrin Park Primary and Woodlands. It's the Langwarrin positive education and community network, and it is doing terrific work: students thrive, parents thrive, teachers thrive and the community thrives. I'll be pleased to keep supporting that initiative as I continue as the member for Dunkley.

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