Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Let us remember that the rally held outside Parliament House by a number of farmers was no ordinary rally; it was directly linked to an action of self-harm. Indeed, the publicity for that rally described the place where the self-harm was being committed as ‘a tower of hope’. And this was off the back of a situation in country Australia where issues of self-harm are well and truly alive, with men in country Australia at double the suicide rate of men in urban Australia. No-one from the government would have anything to do with that rally. The country Independents had nothing to do with that rally. Indeed, the National Farmers Federation—

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