Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Thursday 14 September we will commemorate R U OK? Day. This morning I filled in for the member for Berowra at the R U OK? Day breakfast, which saw many of our parliamentary colleagues and those from the mental health profession come and share breakfast. We had some great presentations made by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister for Health and the shadow minister for mental health, Julie Collins, among others. We here in this place spend most of our lives fighting one another about this, that and the other. But, on something as important as mental health and suicide prevention, I think it is safe to say that we speak as one.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, eight Australians have killed and will kill themselves. They will take their own lives. That is eight yesterday, eight today, eight tomorrow and eight the next day after that. And, for every person who commits suicide, there are 30 people who unsuccessfully attempt it. That is around 240 people who attempt suicide each and every day. They are very scary statistics. They are someone's brother, someone's sister, someone's work colleague, someone's mum or someone's dad. There would not be a person in this place who would not have been personally impacted by someone they know committing suicide. It is a gut-wrenching event that impacts on many families all too often.

What we in this place need to do is encourage Australians to simply ask the question: are you okay? Is there anything I can do to help you? It doesn't take a lot of effort. They say that it takes a village to raise a child, but it's much more than that. It takes a village to raise people. It takes a village to look after people. In our very, very busy world, with social media, when we are all so supposedly well connected, this is a day when we should stop, put our arms around our friends and colleagues and ask, 'Are you okay?'