Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week, Men's Health Week was launched, which is a timely reminder that we need to address the health concerns of everyone. Recently in Gilmore we launched an awareness-raising campaign for prostate cancer. Professor John Macdonald, His Excellency General Sir Peter Cosgrove and the Minister for Health spoke about men's health—in particular, mental health. They mentioned that we need to recognise the excellent contribution that Men's Sheds around Australia make in this area. Often this is a way to reduce depression. We have some great advocacy for our men, but right now the issue of male suicide worries us all. As Professor Macdonald said:

Many suicides are about situational distress, the signs of which may be missed or overlooked if we are too intent on identifying depression or other so called “mental disorders”

There is something we need to examine more closely. Adopting a situational suicide prevention model requires a new approach to data collection, integration, and cross-referencing. Suicide prevention activities can be wasteful if they are simply targeted on high-risk issues or at-risk subgroups in a general way. The scattergun approach can skew evaluation of program effectiveness and great community social support networks become invisible. However, events like industry closures or farms suffering from drought or regions trying to pick up the pieces after a cyclone can cause all sorts of situational distress which may lead to escalated suicide risk. It is time to look more carefully at men's health and perhaps for longer than a week. (Time expired)