Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak on this motion, as one of the co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Suicide Prevention with my friend the member for Eden-Monaro. I want to take this opportunity to wish the member for Eden-Monaro well, as he's recovering from some medical matters. He makes a wonderful contribution to this topic, which has a very strong degree of bipartisan support.

Death is such a dark topic and suicide, in particular, is such a dark topic. We all know the statistics: eight people in Australia die by suicide every single day. Between 2013 and 2017, the average was 2,918 deaths by suicide per year. It's the leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 44. Seventy-five per cent of people who die by suicide are men, 68 people of people who attempt to take their own lives are women and 65,000 Australians have attempted suicide over the past year. For every death that occurs by a suicide, there are families and loved ones who, like me and countless others across Australia, are bereaved and struggle to put their lives back together with the loss of their loved one.

Despite the darkness, what has given me hope in this space since I have been a member of parliament is the number of people who have made it their life's mission and focus to do something about suicide prevention. We have something of the order of 35,000 organisations in this country. It's worth just saying that number again: there are 35,000 organisations that deal with mental health and suicide prevention. That says something about the scale of the challenge and the wide effect that suicide has right across our community. As we know, not everybody who has a mental illness will die by suicide and not everybody who dies by suicide has a mental illness, but there is a strong connection between the two of them.

I'm pleased to be part of a government where the Prime Minister has made zero suicides a focus of his policy. It would have been easy to say, 'We'll promise to reduce the suicide rate by 10 per cent,' but he's taken the courageous decision of saying, 'Let us reduce it to zero.' The Prime Minister is right in doing so, because any death by suicide is a death that should have been avoided. We need to send the message to Australians more broadly that the world is better off with them. That's why I think the government's focus, particularly on the mental health and suicide prevention of young people and Indigenous people, is so important. There is the package of over $500 million targeted at Indigenous people, particularly in the Kimberley, and those two committees that are being chaired by the minister himself. We are looking at ensuring that you've got round-the-clock phone counselling and culturally appropriate material for Indigenous people, and also that you've got awareness across the community of the signs people might see when somebody they know might be contemplating suicide, and awareness of what to do about it—that's such an important process.

I think there are three particular areas where we can make an impact on suicide prevention. First, we know people who are released from acute mental health units who have made an attempt on their own lives are the most likely people to die by suicide. If you go to hospital for a broken leg or a broken arm you'll often go to rehab. Sadly, in our country, not everybody who is discharged from an acute mental health unit goes into a community mental health facility. It's the reason why the government chose, in the previous budget, to fund Beyond Blue for some of the work they're doing with the way back program, providing rehabilitation and getting people back into their communities. We need to continue to do this because they are the obvious group of people who we know are most at risk.

Second, we know that the crisis lines—all privately run, like Lifeline, good people doing good works—try and answer as many calls as they can but they don't answer every call. The government has provided, in the previous budget, $34 million to increase the number of calls that are being taken by Lifeline, but we can always do more to increase those calls.

Third, we need to create greater community awareness so people know the signs and know what to do if a person might be contemplating suicide.

I want to end my contribution today with a quote from Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman. At the end of that play, Willy Loman's wife, Linda, has this to say:

Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.

We need to pay attention to all those in need.

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