Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the member for Hasluck on his excellent contribution to this debate. It has been a pleasure working with him on this and other issues on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing. He makes a real commitment and shows understanding of the issues that come before the committee. This is an issue that impacts on every member in this parliament. It is something that we have all be confronted with at some time or another: the news that a young person in our electorate has taken their life. Then you see the impact that that has on all the other young people within that school or their social group. It has this ripple effect and causes so much anxiety and pain to so many members of that community. It is very sad when a young life so full of promise ends without that promise being realised.

During this series of roundtables that were conducted, I was overwhelmed by the freedom in the way that the young people communicated with the committee and expressed what they thought and how they believed that the problem could be resolved. It was not just about sitting around a table and hearing about problems; it was about hearing about what problems there were now and looking towards the future to what actions could be taken to improve the situation. When we look at youth suicide, we all ask the question of why young people take their lives. One of the first things that comes to mind is the fact that young people tend to not think through the consequences of their actions. They do this without realising that if they take their lives there is no tomorrow; that is it. The friends that they believe will mourn for them will do so. But, unfortunately, they will never know about that, because once they have actually taken their lives that is the end of it. There has been a lot of research undertaken as to why young people take their lives and how, as a community, we can take action to prevent this and how it can be recognised before it happens. There is no one answer to the question. It is very varied. There are a number of different signals that can be given in relation to a person's intention to commit suicide. The member for Hasluck gave a perfect example of a young person who approached it in a very planned way. Quite often the young person will have an argument with somebody and does not think through the consequences of their actions.

There are some significant risk factors that relate to youth suicide. One of those is gender. There are many more young males who take their life than young females. The area in which a person lives also contributes to the likelihood that they will commit suicide. It is a well-known fact that is supported by research that young people living in rural and remote areas are more likely to take their lives. If you add to that the fact that they may be Indigenous, they are even more likely to take their own lives. So there are some particular geographic and social factors that can be indicators of the likelihood of a person committing suicide. Also things like unemployment, loss and separation, peer rejection, social isolation, imprisonment, poor communication skills and a family history of suicide and mental illness. It is important that as a society we recognise these as important issues.

One of the things that became very apparent to the committee during the hearing was that the data that is available around youth suicide is of variable quality. There does not seem to be a lot of consistency in it. There is a definite belief by professionals working in the field and by those people who are associated with recording the data that they do not truly reflect the number of youth suicides that take place. One explanation for this is that where it is uncertain, the coroner will always deliver an open verdict because it is much better, much easier for family and friends to cope with that fact. Also, there are reports of young people who drive their cars into a tree and it is recorded as a car accident not as a youth suicide.

There is a need for a standardised approach to the reporting of youth suicide and there needs to be more research done in this area. The committee recommended that this was one of the actions that should take place. It also recommended standardised reporting of ethnicity, culture, geography, educational attainment and employment status, which is a very big issue. Socioeconomic status is another factor as to whether a person is likely to take their own life. Young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to take their lives more frequently than those from a higher socioeconomic background. But, having said that, the fact is that young people who take their own lives come from all socioeconomic groups, and every young life that is lost is a loss for the future of this country—a loss of opportunity and an opportunity cost—and we should be working towards making sure it stops.

The committee held a number of roundtables, which I would say I was privileged to attend, in particular the roundtable that was held in Sydney. Part of that roundtable was earmarked as confidential because there were in attendance a group of young people who are openly shared with us their experiences. It was very moving. These young people told us how they had attempted to take their own life on a number of occasions or that they had had someone in their family take their own life, and how they had developed a support network that they were rolling out throughout communities across the country. The absolute openness of those young people was so refreshing, and it was enlightening—I learnt so much from them and their experiences. I also learnt that as a member of parliament there is a lot I can do, and a lot that we all can do.

Another thing I learnt was that young people these days communicate very differently from young people in my day. The internet—and communication via the net—is both a resource and a tool for young people who are contemplating taking their own life, but it is also one of the things that can cause a person to become extremely unhappy or depressed. I am sure I am not unique in this and that other members have also been contacted by parents whose children were subjected to cyberbullying, impacting those young people to the extent where they have had to be removed from school and come very close to taking their own lives. And the bullying that takes place not only does so in their locality but spreads to whole regions, and it is extremely traumatic for the young people involved.

The Inspire Foundation, an organisation that I directly contribute to on a monthly basis, does some excellent work using the net. It is the positive side of the net. It tries to counteract the negatives of the net and build on the positives by linking into the way that young people communicate these days.

The fact is that we have so many good people out there working in this area, in this space, providing programs and assistance; but, as the member for Hasluck said, in many cases they are not talking to each other. We have got the federal government putting out some wonderful programs which they started in the previous parliament—and there was much more money put into suicide prevention measures in this budget; then we have got the state governments all contributing and doing some excellent work in the area; and then there is the non-government sector, working long and hard to provide wonderful programs. The problem is that they are not talking to each other. So one of the things that the committee felt very strongly about was the need for everybody to talk to each other and work together and to remember that it is this young person who needs the assistance and the best way to do that is through a structured plan where that person is at the centre of it rather than through different organisations providing a fragmented service. It was also felt that there needed to be some sort of a continuation with programs once a person has either left an acute stage program or left the education system where they may have been receiving support so that the support and help that they got continues on.

This was a unanimous report of the committee. Every person on that committee was totally committed to all the recommendations that we have in this report. There are 10 in all. We need to have more research, we need to have more communication, we need to listen to what the young people say, the programs that are provided need to be integrated and we need to spend a lot more time on ensuring that we have the right sourced data. I will conclude by reading out a tweet that I received from YACWA after we had been over there. The tweet said, 'Thank you for contributing to the roundtable.' Young people appreciate our support and they communicate with us— (Time expired)

See this speech in context