Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to concur with my colleagues on the importance of this particular inquiry. It attracted 258 submissions, we held 12 public hearings throughout Australia, and we have come up with 42 recommendations. Each of those recommendations is very, very important, and I would like to speak about some of them.

There should be an increase in the funding and the number of projects for men. Unfortunately men, unlike women, are very loath to come forward and say they have a problem. Coming from a rural area, I know that there is a cohort of older farmers who really do have these problems, and in many rural areas there is no access to appropriate services and often no GP. Going to the local mental health service, which is often the only place for them to go to, is seen as a stigma. We do have Lifeline, and while we were in Hobart we were very fortunate to observe some of the volunteers working for that organisation. I think Lifeline should be commended on the work they do.

We feel that a separate strategy should be developed for Indigenous communities. In my own home state of Western Australia, not very far from where I live, we had 12 suicides of Indigenous young men over the course of four months. It was absolutely tragic. One suicide is tragic, but to have 12 in a community was very, very sad. It is great, though, to see the support that that community now has in the shape of the services that have been provided there and great also to see the way the community has pulled together to deal with the issue. I do hope they are able to go forward.

We feel that child suicides should be officially reported and that support group assistance should be developed for those who attempt suicide or self-harm. Often those who self-harm go to an emergency department but, because they have self-harmed, they are treated with complete disdain and are not given the service they should get. Quite a number of our witnesses gave us evidence to this effect.

Front-line emergency staff have been mentioned too, and I think they need terrific support. The town that had the 12 suicides was only small, and those emergency staff had to deal with one suicide after the other. On such occasions those people need so much support. Front-line emergency service people must be given debriefing and must be trained to deal with what they have to deal with.

In relation to mental health services, I feel that we need to put so much more into the area. Not every suicide is completed by someone who has a mental health problem, but most are. Somehow we have to pick up these people before they self-harm. Another recommendation is that additional suicide awareness and risk assessment training must be provided to the gatekeepers in regional, rural and remote areas. The cities do have services but, coming from a rural area, as I have said, I know that services are very few and far between.

Another group of people, the LGBTI people, must be recognised in suicide prevention strategies and policies, and targeted programs need to be developed for them. They seem to be left out and they are often very badly affected. We also feel that a national suicide bereavement strategy should be developed. The person who has completed a suicide is not there to deal with the tragic consequences, and bereaved families really have not been given the assistance they probably deserve. Once again, I must say that in rural areas these services are not readily available. There are some very, very good organisations that are doing great work, but there are just too few of them.

We really feel that we should have backup and support for recently released prisoners because often they have had problems. They come out of the prison and then do not have any backup services. So, all in all, I would like to thank the secretariat. With 12 public hearings, they had had to work very hard, and I think that they have done a wonderful job to produce the report for the committee. I also thank all those witnesses who have come before us in public hearings. It is not easy to come and sit before a Senate committee and tell about your personal life. I really commend all those who did that, because they certainly helped to give us the evidence in this report to go forward and to ask the government to support this problem.