Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about something that impacts on all rural electorates in this great country—the prevalence of suicide in rural communities. Today is R U OK Day. R U OK Day is our national day of action, where we pause to ask about the wellbeing of our families, our friends, our colleagues and our peers. It is an initiative that seeks to expose and indeed address an endemic problem facing rural and regional communities—suicide and self-harm. Every year around 2,000 Australians die by suicide. These tragic losses destroy not only the lives of their victims but also their families and communities. While all suicide is tragic, the incidence of suicide is 66 per cent higher in the country than it is in the major cities.

Rural and regional Australians are a proud bunch, and so they should be. They make a massive contribution to the wealth of this nation—a contribution which sometimes goes unnoticed and unthanked. But when times are tough rural and regional Australians feel both the burden of struggle and the dreadful effect of isolation. Further, our rural Australians not only are subject to the risks and uncertainty of the business world but also face the often harsh and unforgiving vicissitudes of the Australian climate. The Australian spirit is strong in the citizens of our rural and regional communities, but isolation and lack of services have unfortunately led to a significant disparity in the rates of suicide in the country as opposed to the city. Farmers are two times more likely to die than the generally employed public. Yet in rural areas there are also vastly higher levels of participation in civic life through volunteering and informal support networks.

That is why R U OK? Day is such an important initiative, because we should never let our own pride stand in the way of our mental health. Whilst we as a government strive to deliver better services and relief to our rural and regional communities, it behoves all of us to ask our families, friends, mates and colleagues how they are going. We should be willing to say more than 'All right, mate,' especially if we are feeling depressed and/or anxious. The old adage proves absolutely true in the prevention of suicide: a problem shared is a problem halved.

So let us on this day of action reach out to our fellow Australians and ask them, 'Are you okay?' In doing so, I hope that we might decrease the rates of suicide in this nation, particularly amongst our rural and regional communities.