Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lalor for her question. As badges in the House indicate, today is R U OK? Day, a campaign that was started by Gav Larkin about 14 years ago, who had lost his dad to suicide many years before that. I had the privilege of knowing Gav very well, as many in this House did, and his powerful message reminds us all of our own individual capacity to help someone in trouble, with a simple question, reaching out to them and asking, 'Are you okay?' We lost Gav, tragically young, to cancer more than a decade ago, but his campaign, as we all see today, is living long through his family. Today there'll be millions of conversations around Australia reflecting his original vision.

R U OK? is a message for us to keep front of mind over the next 30 days, through this referendum campaign. As health minister, I'm already receiving reports of really serious spikes in levels of distress among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Lifeline, which operates 13YARN, a crisis support line for Indigenous Australians, is reporting record levels of requests for help and for support, as are other services in the area. It's an echo of Minister Burney's injunction earlier this week for us to treat each other with respect, no matter what our view about the question that the parliament has put before the Australian people for October 14.

A good doctor listens carefully to their patients because a good doctor knows that that leads to better outcomes. A wise parliament should listen carefully to a group in our community who have lived with such poor outcomes and opportunities decade after decade. I can't think of an area of policy where an advisory voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be of more value than in health. Year after year, this chamber receives the annual Closing the gap report, which lays out in awful detail the yawning gap in health outcomes and life expectancy between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the country. With the best of intentions and substantial investment, things are not changing. Indeed, in some areas they are getting worse.

The approach we've followed year after year is simply not working. On this day in particular we should reflect on the fact that young First Nations Australians are twice as likely to take their own life as the rest of the country. Those data aren't shifting, and the causes are complex. The consequences are shatteringly tragic. They extend well beyond the health discipline or the health portfolio. Listening to community representatives through a voice will help us respond to challenges like that. As the PM said this morning: if the advice is good, we'll follow it; if it's not good, we won't. It's a pretty simple concept, really, but potentially just so powerful. (Time expired)

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