Senate debates

Tuesday, 10 September 2019

Questions without Notice

Mental Health: Suicide Prevention

2:13 pm

Photo of Michaelia CashMichaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you—and, yes, I can. An example of one program benefiting from the government's record investment is batyr. Batyr was actually launched in 2011 after the founder of the organisation, Sebastian Robertson, experienced the frustration and isolation of living silently with mental ill-health whilst at university. Sebastian recognised the need to have open, honest conversations about mental health with young people, and founded the organisation, naming it after Batyr, the talking elephant from Kazakhstan. Batyr is all about confronting the elephant in the room, and that is suicide. Batyr will receive a $2.8 million boost from the Morrison government to expand its interactive school based programs through a new digital storytelling platform. This is a serious issue, and the government will work towards a zero—

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