Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to state as a starting point how proud I am to represent the youth in my electorate of Holt and how much I value their contribution to our community, particularly in the city of Casey. The city of Casey has a large number of young people. The 2006 census had the total number of young people, aged between 10 and 25, at 59,953. I am sure that, given it is six years since the census was taken, that it is now many more than that. This is a significant cohort of young people. They are the future of our community and the future of our country. Their opinions actually matter. What has concerned me for some time in my electorate and the surrounding region is the way in which our young people have been categorised and the pressures they are under. For example, when a young man in my electorate threw a party some years ago, that was front and centre in the national media, but when it comes to the many constructive things that young people do, and the contribution they make, we very rarely read about it. What sort of message does that send to our young people? Basically, it says that if you do not do anything bad you do not get reported, but if you do, you will.

I have been fortunate over the past couple of months to engage with young people in our community, to talk about the challenges they face in their lives and how they are confronting them. It is easy, as I have said in the past, to overlook our youth, but they are the future of the community and the challenges they face need to be paid attention to. During the regular meetings with our young community leaders we discussed a number of challenging issues confronting young people at present, ranging from school bullying to the immense pressure that is being placed upon young people who are required to define who they are at as young as 16 or 17.

However, one issue that came out loud and clear, and which deeply disturbs me, is the increased rate of young people taking their lives in our local community. I am hearing, unfortunately, story after story of young people who know about young people who have taken their lives. Too many people have been touched by colleagues and friends committing suicide at a young age. What is this saying? In fact, I was contacted by a young student leader a couple of days ago about another suicide that happened. So what is happening in our community? We know that youth suicide is an incredibly important issue, and that governments pay attention to it, but young people are dying—they are dying in my area—and that is just not good enough. We have to do something about this. We have to do something to reduce the terrible toll this is taking on our young people in our community.

We have known for a long time that mental health issues have gone under the radar, but these issues need to be discussed. Experts advise that six or seven Australians die by suicide every day. For each person lost by suicide approximately 30 others have made a suicide attempt. In Australia, the rates of suicide and self-harm remain unacceptably high in the community, with the number of deaths at least 40 per cent greater than the number attributed to national road fatalities. According to Professor Patrick McGorry, the issue of youth suicide needs to be taken as seriously as the road toll as it is the biggest killer of young people under 35 years of age.

After speaking recently with Drew Gormley from Spirit Works I was incredibly disturbed to hear that one particular school in the area that I represent had about 11 suicides of past students in the past 18 months. According to Drew Gormley there is something serious that has happened; this goes outside of the norm; it is something that we need to pay attention to.

Interestingly, according to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing's July 2011 report Before it is too late, the groups of young people who may be at risk of suicide include in no particular order: victims of bullying, including cyberbullying, harassment and discrimination; gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals; those who are socially isolated or homeless; individuals with mental illness, especially depression and anxiety; those in the juvenile justice system, those using drugs and alcohol; individuals who engage in self-harm who have previously attempted suicide; and individuals who have experienced trauma, particularly where there is unresolved, grief, loss and family breakdown.

One of the leading documents looking into the issue of youth suicide is the Suicide Prevention Australia submission to the Senate inquiry into suicide in Australia in November 2009. According to the Suicide Prevention Australia submission, suicide remains a complex phenomenon for which there is no single cause and no one solution:

Deaths of this kind bear profound individual, familial, social and economic costs – not all of which can be effectively measured.

The submission goes on to note:

Beyond the toll to a person’s mental and physical health and wellbeing, experiences with suicide can result in financial stress as a result of loss of employment, an inability to return to work, or the financial imperative to do so before an individual is ready. Estrangement from social networks, relationship breakdown, impediments to educational progress and study, family conflict … and changes to religious or spiritual beliefs … also feature strongly.

The submission also found that:

For every suicide, it is conservatively estimated that, on average, another six people will be severely affected by intense grief.

The submission goes on to note that significant and far-reaching loss by those left behind, particularly family, friends and colleagues, is therefore immeasurable.

The vicarious trauma and impact of suicide ... on first responders ... clinicians, general practitioners and other health professionals (including coronial staff), and also volunteers, work colleagues and whole communities, should not be underestimated.

Whilst the pain associated with each suicide and suicide attempt may be private, both remain major public concerns. Finding ways in which to reduce suicide rates and the incidence of suicidal behaviours is therefore everybody's business.

According to the submission, one of the key preventative measures that is needed is to create a national suicide awareness campaign that takes its lead from previously successful community health campaigns, such as tobacco, HIV-AIDS and road trauma to strongly promote messages of hope, help seeking, resilience, social inclusiveness and wellbeing amongst individuals and communities whilst at the same time tackling the stigma associated with suicide and self-harm. Such a campaign would need to engage with and from connections to other relevant social agenda issues, including homelessness, bullying and substance abuse—that includes drugs and alcohol—and the impacts of ongoing challenges such as the global financial crisis and climate change.

The submission also noted that within the school environment a student's attempted or suspected suicide is a similarly traumatic event. However, it can also contribute to an increased suicide risk in other vulnerable students and members of the student's family. The submission importantly notes that in these instances the roles of school and education providers to manage the potentially long-term impact of suicide on young people, including the tensions that inevitably arise from a duty of care to others, and the ways in which information is shared between students, parents and staff following the student's suicide becomes vitally important, requiring great compassion and mindfulness in respect of the needs and wishes of the bereaved or the affected family.

More action is needed in assisting schools and the broader community in dealing with the issue of youth suicide. There are a number of programs and organisations that exist to help young people deal with life pressures, but more resources, especially in rural and urban areas, are needed. The main programs run are basically by beyondblue; Suicide Helpline; Lifeline; and an initiative called 'Living is for everyone', which is an Australian based self-harm prevention resource website. Headspace centres are also run by the National Youth Mental Health Foundation, which helps young people who are going through a tough time. I will not go into all the services that headspace provides. It is a place that you can go to talk to someone about any issue, particularly young people. I highly recommend young people visit a headspace centre if they are finding life's challenges difficult.

One organisation that I know everyone would welcome here and it is worthy of mention is Professor Patrick McGorry's Orygen Youth Health centre, which is a world-leading youth mental health organisation based in Melbourne. This organisation has three components: a specialised youth mental health clinic service, an internationally renowned research centre, and an integrated training and communications program.

I also wish to praise the efforts of the youth in my community who have even started up a Facebook page called 'Coming together to prevent youth suicide'. In light of their initiative and the ongoing feedback that I have received from our young leaders in Casey, I wish to convene a summit in the electorate of Holt that brings together leading experts in Australia like Professor McGorry to address the issues that young people like Danny Rothwell, who is a constituent of mine and a great youth leader, continue to talk about, so we can discuss the plight of so many young people in my area who are affected by suicide.

In the coming weeks I will talk more about this particular initiative. It is time that young people's voices were heard. This ongoing situation of youth suicide in my area is unacceptable. One suicide is enough. One suicide is one suicide too many. We need to do something about that. Listening to the voices in our community through this Facebook group, through this Facebook page and other young community leaders we are going to make sure their voices are heard by convening the summit and making sure we have a regional, area-wide plan to stop another young person dying in my electorate.