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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-06-23 Daily Xml
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SUICIDE PREVENTION

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (12:28): I move:

That this house—

(a) notes the Senate's Community Affairs References Committee Report entitled 'The Hidden Toll: Suicide in Australia' that recommended a suicide prevention and awareness campaign for high risk groups and also recommended that additional 'gatekeeper' suicide awareness and risk assessment training be directed to people living in regional, rural and remote areas;

(b) notes that both the World Health Organisation and the International Association for Suicide Prevention have advocated a multifaceted approach to suicide prevention, including recognising the important role that community-based organisations can play in preventing suicide;

(c) congratulates the Eyre Peninsula Local Government Association and the Eyre Peninsula Division of General Practice for seizing the initiative and providing funding to establish its own Community Response to Eliminating Suicide Program on the Eyre Peninsula; and

(d) urges the Rann government to place greater emphasis on community-based organisations and acknowledges their importance, particularly in preventing suicide in regional South Australia.

The CORES program was first discovered by John Dawkins, I think back in 2006, and he has been advocating for many years that this program be funded by the state government. In fact, the Liberal Party took to the last election a policy to fund $350,000 towards seed funding so that this could be set up in 10 regional and rural areas.

Having heard about the CORES program, I decided to undertake the program so that I would have a much better idea of what the program offers and whether I could stand here and recommend it to you as something that I think would have great benefit. I see this as a very practical way of helping people. It is inexpensive, it empowers people, and it actually gets the community involved. It is not another report or another lot of money spent on surveying people, but it is actually a practical approach to finding the solution and getting the community involved.

We know that there is a high rate of suicide in country areas in particular, and this is one relatively inexpensive way that we can make a difference. I am particularly concerned with the effects that selling the forests in the South-East will have on the mental health of the men in the region and the people in that area. Programs like this would be of great benefit, because it teaches you, as somebody who has participated in the course, to recognise characteristics, words that are used, and behaviours, and see when people are under stress and under duress.

Suicide is an issue that is not discussed very often. We talk about rates of death on our roads, yet there are far more suicides every year. So being able to recognise and then know what to do from there—how do you help somebody? There is a lot of confusion; certainly there is beyondblue and there is Lifeline and there are certain places that you can go, but where in a practical way can we be taught what the steps are?

The course also teaches you what level of danger the person is in, so that you know what the appropriate response is in that situation, whether you need to take them straight to a GP to get an assessment immediately or whether you just need to ring Lifeline or help them set up some structures in their life of how to cope, so some coping mechanisms. It might be that you recognise some depression or changes in someone's behaviour and that you actually then get them involved in the community through sport or activities to re-engage them and help them build up their own coping mechanisms.

So there are lots of ways that we can assist the community to identify problem areas and then help people build up their own resistance to those. I think that for $350,000 of seed funding to help 10 regional rural and community areas this is a great cause. I strongly recommend that the house thinks about this and I commend it to the house.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:33): I commend the member for Adelaide for bringing this forward. I understand the government will seek to amend it, but hope not to in any way undermine the intent of it. This is an issue which I think one would trust is above political point-scoring. We know that in Australia more people die as a result of suicide than in road accidents. That is an appalling statistic when you realise that the number of people who die on our roads is about 100 in South Australia, so you can multiply that roughly by the population of Australia. That is an appalling statistic in its own right, and when you acknowledge that suicide results in even more deaths, it is something that we need to try to do something about.

Traditionally, the strategy has been not to talk about it. I do not think that is a good strategy. I think it is important to talk about something, because if you do not talk about it you are not likely to do anything about it. We have had similar problems not just with men's health but, I guess, with women's health as well. If you do not talk about things, don't discuss them, don't raise them, then little will happen.

One of the problems with regard to suicide is that it tends to be more common per capita in rural areas, and that is for a range of reasons: lack of access to services like counselling, problems associated with the risks of farming, onset of drought, and incredible debt burden, all those sorts of things. Often, people who take their life think they are solving the problem but, sadly, they create a bigger problem for their family—the loved ones who are left behind.

One of the worst experiences I have had as a member of parliament—and most of the time I love what I do and enjoy it—was with a lad I was dealing with who had done something silly when he was a juvenile working for a boss. I might have mentioned it here before, but I will mention it again. He was given the boss's credit card to buy something for the company, and he bought something for himself on the credit card. It was not a big purchase. It was not a colour TV, but, anyway, it was wrong; he should not have done it, and he got a conviction.

About nine years later, he wanted to become a security guard. He topped the class, he had an excellent report and went to get a job with Chubb, I think. They had a look and said, 'No, you've got a conviction.' That lad, who was a very active member of the Young Catholic Workers group, hung himself. His mother could not get to him in time and he was dead.

Dealing with that family—I do not know whether other members have had this experience, and I trust they never will—is one of the worst things that you have to deal with. That family is obviously shattered forever, and it was one of the motivations for my bringing in the spent convictions legislation. That lad took his life for something that was a silly thing to do when he was a teenager, but it should not have been held against him and prevented him from getting a job. Before he took his life (and I did not realise he was going to do that), he said to me, 'I'll never get a job. I'll never get anywhere in life.' Within a short period of time, sadly, we became aware that he had taken his life.

I had another such experience in the complex where my office is located. I will not be too precise, but the grandson of somebody who works in that area drowned in a swimming pool; that put pressure on the parents' relationship and they split up, and then the husband, the father of the little boy, took his own life. As I say, I will be a bit vague, but what do you say to someone who works in the same general area as my office? What do you say to someone who has lost their grandson and then lost their son through suicide? Sometimes, I wonder how people cope with the pain of that.

So, I think it is important that we deal with this issue. One of the good things that has come out of Victoria, in particular, was Jeff Kennett, who I pay tribute to (some people might have thoughts about whether what he did as a premier was good or bad) and his championing of the cause of beyondblue, which I think has been fantastic. I know people might think I am on a soapbox and I am: I make no apology for it. I believe it is very important that, in terms of the school environment, particularly high schools, we check out young people in their early secondary years to see if there are there any signs of emerging depression or any other indicators that might suggest that a person is at risk.

For many years, in the Division of General Practice, the commonwealth funded a program in country areas where young people were assessed at school for learning disabilities, psychological issues and so on. I have never understood why that program was never extended to the metropolitan areas of Australia. I see in the motion that the member for Adelaide refers to the Eyre Peninsula Division of General Practice. As I understand it, the doctor at Tumby Bay—I will think of his surname in a moment, his first name is Graham—

An honourable member: Dr Fleming.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: Yes, thank you—Dr Graham Fleming. Is he still a GP there?

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: He is still a GP in Tumby Bay. He was very keen to get the suicide rate down on Eyre Peninsula. I think it was running at something like eight or nine deaths a year—I do not know the exact number. Through this program of working with young people and assessing students at school, I think the suicide rate—those tragedies—were brought down to either one or zero. To me it makes sense. If you get in early, you can observe the issues—the problems—and you can get the counselling and treatment. Dr Fleming is to be commended for that program.

I know one of the psychologists who worked in that program, Dr Garry Childs. He was part of assessing the children there. That sort of program should be throughout the community, because it is in those early teenage years that we often see indications that there are problems with depression and other issues. There is a whole range of them that can and should be diagnosed then. It is done in Scandinavian countries. I do not understand why, in Australia, we are not more switched on in terms of prevention and trying to reduce the incidence of suicide, among other things.

I commend this motion. I think it is good to be discussing it. It is a sad and tragic topic. The pain for the people who have experienced it in their family goes on and on. As a society and as a government, all of us have to be better at trying to ensure that people do not take their life at a time when things are down, when they are under a lot of pressure. As I said at the start, the number of people taking their life is greater than the number we lose on the road, and that in itself is an appalling number. I commend the member for Adelaide for this, and I ask members to support it.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:42): I also indicate my support for the member for Adelaide's motion. It is a most worthwhile motion. I would sincerely hope that the government supports it as it is written and get on with it. I am particularly interested in the regional and rural side of suicide prevention. It is an enormous problem that very much goes unnoticed probably by a vast number of people in the metropolitan area. I acknowledge also that it is a considerable problem in the city. It is not putting it to one side.

Over the years, I have known many people who have been driven to take their own life and, indeed, some who have attempted to and have been caught in time, so to speak, and now do not have that same problem. It is an enormous problem. In the bush, people live under pressures that it would be hard for people in the metropolitan areas to understand. Farming families in particular are enormously stressed.

I know numerous farmers, both husbands and wives, who, over the years, have been under enormous stress—pressures from banks, pressures from seasonal conditions, pressures from prices, all sorts of pressures lead them to get themselves in a state of mind where they contemplate suicide. It is a terrible, terrible thing. Indeed, when we had the interest rate hike, I can recall my own business paying 27 per cent on our overdraft. That drove people to the stage where they just thought there was no hope. They could not see light at the end of the tunnel, and they contemplated taking action to end their own life.

This motion is well thought out. It has been well researched. It covers the broad spectrum of South Australians and, of course, the broader Australian community. I have heard and listened with interest to what members have had to say on the subject this morning. It does not escape any of us. I am aware of the issue closer to home. I do urge the house to support the motion.

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (12:45): I move to amend clause (d) as follows:

Leave out all words after (d) and replace with the following words:

That the government notes that effective suicide prevention awareness is best delivered through collaborative partnerships, including through local communities, non-government organisations, public health services and primary care health practitioners.

The government of South Australia recognises that community-based organisations play a vital role in suicide prevention in our communities. I know, indeed, many people in my area in the rural areas around Virginia and Two Wells and beyond, and it is an issue that emerges commonly when you go into the communities up there.

However, we also recognise that effective suicide prevention is a whole-of-community responsibility and requires combined effects and collaboration of local communities, health services and primary care practitioners, together with local community organisations, to identify and support individuals at risk of suicide. I know the people at the Two Wells RSL, which is a community-based RSL. Tony Flaherty and many of his members there are actively engaged in reaching out to people in the north of Adelaide who are at risk or suffering from depression or who are worried that potentially one of their family members could take their own life. I praise them for the work they do as community organisations involved in it.

The government is concerned about the increased risk of suicide for people living in rural and remote communities. The rate of suicide in rural areas is 20 to 30 per cent higher than in the metropolitan area, according to a Senate report, with factors including geographic isolation, economic and environmental challenges, difficulties in accessing mental health care, a traditional reluctance to talk about mental health problems or to seek help, and increased access to means of suicide such as pesticides and firearms, contributing to this increased risk.

The effect of suicide is an all-of-community effect. It is profound and far-reaching, and we recognise the importance of encouraging suicide prevention initiatives throughout our country communities in South Australia. As part of the development of the South Australian Suicide Prevention Strategy, the government will be consulting with a wide range of country communities across the state, evaluating existing suicide programs and services across Australia to identify service gaps in order to develop a coordinated approach to suicide prevention, intervention and postvention across the state.

This will include a review of the best ways to encourage and support community-based organisations, as well as health services, local communities and primary healthcare practitioners to identify and assist people at risk of suicide and their families so that they can reduce the burden of suicide in our state and our nation. I know that the Wakefield Group is particularly interested in and involved in community engagement for people in the northern areas of Adelaide and beyond to the Barossa and are working on these projects. I welcome the government's attention to these matters and put forward this amendment and hope for bipartisan support.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Treloar.

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