Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will speak briefly, because I believe that this particular report will now be on the agenda for a number of months with people wanting to be engaged on this topic. But today it gives me great pride to be able to say that our government has responded within the time frame for responses. I want to echo Senator Siewert’s comments on that. I have not been here that long—not as long as you, Mr Acting Deputy President McGauran—but I do not remember a community affairs committee report ever having a response within the agreed time frame before. I do not think it is something that happens very often, but when it does happen it should be noted.

The report has 42 recommendations. Community affairs committee reports do tend to have multiple recommendations, but in this process I have been through them briefly and will have to do a lot more work to see where all the responses are in it. But all the recommendations have been picked up by the government. The ones that need more work are clearly identified in the listing at the back, so it is quite an easy format. I want to acknowledge the format used in this report. The government notes issues that need considerably more work, and it acknowledges that that needs to happen. So when people are reading the report they can look at the special recommendation about which they feel most strongly. If it says ‘the government notes’ then it is up to all of us to ensure that the government notes it and takes future action. The ones I particularly want to note, though, are ones where action is going to happen. It happens so often that when you work closely on an issue like this one, which has such incredible personal pain related to the topic, you become deeply engaged in the people’s lives and their families, and that again happened in our committee. Senator Siewert touched on many of the same issues that I want to briefly reinforce now.

After that passionate statement about how personally and deeply you get involved with the people, the first comment I am going to make is about statistics, which often do not have such a personal link. But, in terms of data collection and knowledge, statistics must be effectively acknowledged, identified and useful. Certainly, in this particular discussion, a great deal of effort was put into the committee’s submissions around concern with the way statistics were maintained in this area in Australia. The fact is that the way suicides are identified and classified and the responsibility for ensuring that the national database is accurate vary from state to state. Different people are involved. There was a standard issue that there was a lack of real knowledge and also resourcing at the state level. So certainly one of the key aspects of this was to have that on record and to take the information that had been collected by specialist agencies through the wonderful Suicide Prevention Australia network, on whom we relied so greatly in this whole inquiry for their professional knowledge and understanding and also for their personal support—because, for many of us involved in this particular inquiry, at times it was very difficult as we were learning of individual cases, the causes, the lack of knowledge and the sheer waste and loss which are caused in this community by the issues around suicide.

We relied on the personal and professional knowledge of Suicide Prevention Australia. They have had a special working group in place now for a couple of years looking specifically at the issues around data and statistics. They brought that knowledge to our committee, and it has now been taken up by the government in relation to the fact that it needs to be on the COAG agenda for the ministerial grouping that has this responsibility across the country. So that will happen. We as a Senate need to maintain the interest to ensure that it does happen and that we come back and revisit this topic, which we have had a reputation for doing over the last few years. It is one thing to establish a committee, to make recommendations and to have government responses, and we have all of that in this case, but the other thing is to keep a very strong watching brief on it to ensure that it does not slip off the agenda. As I am sure you have seen, Mr Acting Deputy President, once something is actually completed there is a tendency in government to take it as a tick and move on to the next priority. That cannot happen in this case, because the need will continue. Certainly I think those areas around statistics and data collection need to have that constant scrutiny to ensure that we maintain the watch.

Senator Siewert mentioned the issues around Indigenous need, and certainly that was a major concern for all of us, and I will take that up at another time in a longer contribution. But I do want to look at the issues of research, because one of the things that we talked about was the need for effective and publicly shared research in this area. Certainly there is a specific recommendation looking at the issues of research and the need for professional knowledge in the area. I have mentioned Suicide Prevention Australia. I also want to mention Griffith University in Brisbane, where I have visited and spoken with the people who work with Professor Diego De Leo up there. They have such knowledge in this area. They also continue to research international best practice and international literature and put that information into the public awareness so that, if you are interested in issues around suicide, you have a central base on which to rely. Then it is up to you whether you wish to take more knowledge. That particular service needs to be maintained. You know that in this place there is no such thing as a guaranteed funding mechanism but, in terms of where we go from this process, we have to have that effective database of information. We have to encourage professional research in the area so that we understand the issues. There are so many and they are so complex, but in the end it comes down to people who are lost and troubled. So we have to provide the best possible support for them and provide effective research. I note that this week the National Health and Medical Research Council grants were handed out, and I know mental health research received a number of those grants, so in that way there has been acknowledgement of the need and moving to the future, but that needs to be maintained.

I only wanted to make a few comments this afternoon, because there are more senators and a limited time, but this issue cannot be taken off the agenda. We have the committee report, a resource that should be used into the future. We now have the government response. We need to keep that pressure on government to ensure that the initial response continues. We have seen significant financial involvement in this area of suicide already, but that is the first step. These programs are over four to five years. We need to ensure that they are evaluated effectively. I can say as a member of this committee that there were 42 recommendations. They are all important, and we need to continue the commitment.