Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak to and commend the member for La Trobe's private member's motion that deals with our joint concern about the average number of suicide deaths per year in Australia. We have heard the figure of 2,415.

This is an incredibly disturbing figure. We know that medical experts agree that each of those 2,415 deaths is avoidable and that suicide is the leading cause of deaths in Australia for men under 44 and women under 34. It is imperative that all levels of government, whether local, state, territory or federal, do more to properly support and fund mental health into the future.

As the member for La Trobe knows, we have been hit particularly hard by the devastating impacts of suicide in our area. Our community has dealt with this devastation with courage, resolve and determination; and through wonderful initiatives like the Coming Together to Prevent Youth Suicide Facebook page started by students affected by suicide and their loss to participation in a groundbreaking forum that I hosted with Pat McGorry in 2012 that was covered by Four Corners called There is No 3G in Heaven.

We know that suicide is an important subject but here are some other facts. We know that after the game-changing Burdekin report in 1993 that mental health treatment devolved from being solely treated at an institution to being treated in the community; but we also know that mental health service providers have never been appropriately funded by any government to provide that service to the community. As a consequence, some of our best and brightest mental health service providers leave the public system and access to treatment becomes much harder.

We know that in Australia governments collectively spend approximately seven per cent of their health budget on mental health and that other comparable First World countries spend up to 14 per cent. In essence, we are spending something like a Third World country on mental health services for our people in this country, and that is completely disgraceful.

We also know that only one in five people suffering from a mental illness seeks treatment. We know that we continue to underfund mental health research in this country even though we have some of the best mental health researchers in the world. We know that the stigma around mental health illness continues. Has it abated in the 20 years since Burdekin produced this groundbreaking report? Yes, it has. Is there more to be done to ameliorate the stigma? Of course there is. Are people still dying, because of the stigma associated with mental illness? Yes, they are. Should we accept that? No, we should not.

This is why I am a strong supporter of Patrick McGorry's new Australians for Mental Health campaign. In fact I had the honour of launching this campaign along with Professor McGorry on 23 August 2014 at Village Cinemas at Westfield Fountain Gate. This event was attended by nearly 200 people, some of whom had been personally affected by the loss of a loved one due to suicide.

Australians for Mental Health aims to reduce the stigma and calls for an increase in mental health funding. It calls for improved access to mental health care and for a reduction in the suicide toll by 25 per cent of its current rate—which is 2,361 deaths per annum by 2016—and by 50 per cent of its current rate by 2020.

The millions of dollars spent on new road safety programs like wearing seat belts that were introduced in 1973 have reduced the national road toll, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from 3,798 deaths in 1970 to 1,193 deaths in 2013. If a similar national campaign was embarked upon by governments, federal, state and local, we could reduce the national suicide rate in the coming years.

At a local level, the City of Casey has made some important progress in reducing the stigma associated with mental illness and suicide, particularly youth suicide, and by providing new mental health services. The member for La Trobe mentioned the headspace at Dandenong and the new headspace at Fountain Gate, which is in the member for La Trobe's electorate but will be accessed by people from my constituency. These are two very important services, but there will also be an early psychosis intervention centre rolled over the top of the Dandenong service and the Fountain Gate service.

I commend the member for La Trobe for his words. This is a campaign where, if governments do not take action, literally lives will be lost. I commend the motion.

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