Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the Christmas holiday break I read that euthanasia doctor Philip Nitschke had recently published a suicide manual and that the Attorney-General had asked the Classification Review Board to consider banning this dangerous book. Family First is pleased the federal government is taking action to ban a book that gives people with suicidal thoughts the information to end their lives. That is not the help they need. They do not need lethal help; they need life-saving assistance. Books promoting terrorism are banned or restricted in Australia, so it is quite reasonable to ban books that promote terminating life.

When we think of the tragedy of suicide, we often think of teenagers and older Australians who are ill. We think of teenagers facing the difficulties of adolescence and we mourn their suicides because of all the promise their young lives held. We think of older Australians who are ill, and perhaps this also prompts us to think about our own lives and what lies ahead.

Every suicide is devastating—another precious life lost—but the reality is that more than 50 per cent of people who commit suicide are between the ages of 25 and 50, and more than 80 per cent of that group are men. As a 46-year-old I fall into that age group. For me this is a rich time in my life, juggling my challenging family roles as husband to Sue and father of my kids, James, Campbell and Gabrielle, with my professional responsibilities as Family First senator and Leader of the Family First Party. Many men in this age group are in a similar situation. For many, it is the most productive and satisfying period of their lives; yet it is also a time when many end their lives. Those numbers shock me. Those men are my peers. They are the blokes I grew up with and went to school with—how very sad that they are more likely to die as a result of suicide than from a car accident.

Suicide is tragic enough, but there are also all the people who have made an unsuccessful suicide attempt. If they get hold of this book, there may not be so many who are unsuccessful. There are a range of government programs to reduce the road toll and to reduce the suicide rate, and Family First applauds them all; yet here we have a medical practitioner who has published a book on how to end your life rather than save it. One of the main factors experts highlight to reduce the suicide toll is restricting access to the means of suicide. If you want to reduce the suicide toll, you have to make it harder for people to commit suicide, not easier. That means making sure suicide promoters like Philip Nitschke do not have a chance to incite vulnerable people to suicide.

The Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention says reasons for suicide include: a personal crisis often linked to a major life transition, such as losing a loved one or a job; a psychological disorder that can magnify such distress; and alcohol and substance abuse. There are many ways we can help people struggling with such issues. When we invest so much to provide such help, why do we also allow someone to promote suicide rather than solutions?

The good news is that suicide numbers have declined by 20 per cent since 1997, but there are still over 2,000 suicides a year and there is a long way to go. Sadly, a paper published last year showed that suicides on Dr Nitschke’s home turf in the Northern Territory had increased significantly over the past 20 years. Family First supports the National Suicide Prevention Strategy, but the federal government provides just over $10 million a year on suicide prevention projects, which is nowhere near enough. Compare that to the $45 million a year the government allocates to the Black Spot Program to fix high-rate road accident areas. In 2005 there were just over 1,600 deaths on our roads, 25 per cent fewer than by suicide in 2004, but just one road safety program gets four times the funding of suicide prevention. Until the federal government gets serious about addressing the problem of suicide, extremist fringe dwellers like Dr Nitschke will continue to put people in lethal danger.

Senators may have seen a newspaper report in last Saturday’s Age about the Swiss suicide group Dignitas. Dr Nitschke has taken a number of people to Switzerland, where the organisation has helped them commit suicide. However, it is reported that one of the staff from Dignitas has resigned because:

Clients, most of them foreigners, would arrive in Zurich, have a doctor confirm in the morning that they were ill but sound of mind ‘and by 4pm—

the same day—

they would be dead.

The former Dignitas worker asks:

In that time, how can you be sure they really wanted to die?’

She also expresses her concern that some clients were not terminally ill but suffered from depression. The head of Dignitas argues:

... every person ... has the right to choose to die, even if they are not terminally ill.

Is that the sort of Australia we want? Certainly it is the Australia that Dr Nitschke wants. We saw that with Nancy Crick and Lisette Nigot, both of whom were not terminally ill and died after having sought suicide advice from Dr Nitschke. Dr Nitschke should be deregistered for his dangerous and irresponsible behaviour. His book should not be allowed to threaten the lives of vulnerable Australians.