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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-24 Daily Xml
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SUICIDE PREVENTION

Adjourned debate on motion of Ms Sanderson:

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.

Which Ms Vlahos has moved to amend the motion by leaving out all words after (d) and replacing with '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'.

(Continued from 23 June 2011.)

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (12:53): Around 2,000 Australians die by suicide each year. Three quarters of these are men. There are also an estimated 60,000 people per year who attempt to take their own lives, the majority being women. In South Australia, it is estimated that around 170 South Australians take their life each year.

Last year, our state lost 118 lives on our roads. Our road toll is one statistic we do talk about. We have road signs for fatigue awareness, education policies, road safety campaigns, speed limits and recommendations, speed cameras, red light cameras, SAPOL specialist operations—all in place to combat the loss of life on our roads because we know that the loss and injuries sustained cause so much pain to families, friends and communities, along with the immense economic costs.

Death by suicide is a statistic and a phenomenon that we as a society rarely talk about. One hundred and seventy is not just a statistic; it is not just a number. Each death causes immeasurable loss to family, to their community and to society as a whole. Many academics believe that suicide statistics are under-represented by up to 30 per cent. This is because scenarios such as drug overdoses, which may have been suicide, are reported as accidental, along with single vehicle accidents where the driver has crashed into a fixed object, such as a tree, and drownings and falls that could have been successful suicide attempts and not accidents.

Attempted suicide refers to intentional self harm where death does not occur but the intention of the person was to cause a fatal outcome. It has often been said that suicide was taboo to discuss and that discussing suicide would encourage normalcy, even promoting the taking of life.

However, in other places around the world, such as Edinburgh, Scotland, recent research has led to policy change and suicide is being talked about more freely within society. Suicide is not glamorised or methods discussed, but a campaign called Suicide. Don't Hide It, Talk About It aims to tackle the stigma associated with suicide. Encouraging people at risk to talk to someone about feeling suicidal is a first step towards getting help. There has been a 13 per cent reduction in suicide rates in Scotland in the last eight years.

We know that there are certain groups within Australian society who are at a higher risk of suicide. Essentially, these groups are men, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, people who have previously attempted suicide, people who are being treated for mental illness in a psychiatric facility, people bereaved by suicide and people in remote and rural communities. It is the last group, people in the remote and rural communities, that leads me to the core point of this motion.

The Senate's Community Affairs References Committee report, entitled The Hidden Toll: Suicide in Australia, 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 and rural areas. Many gatekeeper frontline personnel, such as SAPOL, community workers, health workers and educators, have not received specific training regarding suicide prevention and awareness.

CORES stands for Community Response to Eliminating Suicide and is a not-for-profit, regional-based suicide prevention program aimed at providing community members with the skills to identify the warning signs and the confidence to intervene safely and effectively. It utilises volunteers from all facets of the community. Upon the recommendation of the Hon. John Dawkins from another place, I personally attended the one-day program.

I believe it is essential that the government provide the seed funding to develop CORES suicide prevention courses across a number of key regional areas in South Australia. I urge this house to support the motion.

Amendment carried; motion as amended carried.

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