Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Minister for Sport. I refer the minister to youth mental health issues present in the Clarence Valley and other communities. I thank the minister for visiting my community recently. Will he advise on how the government is taking action on mental health and helping young Australians reach their full potential, including in my electorate of Page?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Page, who has a deep personal commitment to addressing and confronting issues of youth suicide, suicide in the community more generally and mental health. It is of course a commitment that is shared—and I say this is in full confidence—by every member of this House. One of the reasons is that, with 3,000 lives lost to suicide each year, that would represent more than 20 lives in each electorate—if you look around at each member, more than 20 lives. But with four million people who suffer from mental health issues, this is something that is present in every family, in every community, in every room. So, the advocacy of the member for Page is fundamental.

We visited the town of Grafton because this was one town that had been hit by a particular series of tragedies—a series of youth suicides that have ripped at the absolute fabric of that town. The member for Page and I, along with Pat McGorry, met with four families, four sets of parents who either had lost their children or, in one case, were suffering the legacy of an attempted suicide that would echo for the next 30 years. What we saw at the same time, though, was a town determined to galvanise itself into action. Together the people of the Clarence Valley and in particular of Grafton had put together the Our Healthy Clarence plan. This is a plan we were pleased to be able to support—firstly, by announcing the first of 10 new headspaces focused on rural and regional Australia, where youth mental health and youth suicide have been such a terrible bane. And I want to acknowledge in particular the Leader of the House, who played a very important role in helping to establish the headspace program.

This headspace was welcomed by young people in the community. At the same time, we also launched the fact that the North Coast Primary Health Network would be one of 12 leading suicide prevention trial sites around the country. As part of that, $600,000 is to be focused across the area, particularly on working with young people in schools both pre and post suicides within their community, because what happens afterwards is about making sure there is not another loss, as well as working with Indigenous communities. These are all part of the pillars of our long-term national health plan: mental health and preventive health, two things the Prime Minister has made signature personal initiatives. I am pleased we have been able to give Clarence that sense of hope. I want to commend the members of the community, thank the member for Page and galvanise the House to work together on youth mental health and on suicide prevention.