E&OE................................................................................................................
Well, thank you very much for those words of welcome, Dr Moyes, to
the Reverend Bob Dunlop, to Reverend Pamela McNally, to Ms Carmen
Duncan, ladies and gentlemen.
I've come here this morning for several reasons. I've come
partly to salute the work over a long period of time of LifeForce
and its predecessor and I suppose, its parent organisation, Lifeline,
which under the leadership of that great Australian, Sir Alan Walker,
was established so many years ago and for the first time, provided
an easily accessible human link between people in our community who
felt lonely, depressed, ignored, unfairly treated or who in any way
were shut out from, or alienated from society. And the concept that
help was as close as the telephone and the concept that our community
was warmhearted enough and decent enough and had within its ranks
enough good people willing to make their time available to help people
who needed help. Over the years, that has undoubtedly saved the lives
of countless thousands of Australians and it's given to those
countless Australians and their families new and fresh hope.
So I therefore want, this morning, to salute the work, not only of
LifeForce and Lifeline, but all the other organisations in Australia
that have worked so very hard to provide a link between what seems
to people in a desperate frame and a depressed frame of mind, a world
that is passing them by and ignoring them and unfairly treating them
- that's provided those people with a visible link.
I've also come to demonstrate my personal concern and the concern
of my Government about the level of suicide within the Australian
community. It is a matter of sadness that the rate of suicide particularly,
but not only, amongst young people and marginally greater amongst
young men than young women, is one of the great social failings of
the Australian community. I don't want to talk for very long
about the resources that we have made available. But we have significantly
increased the resources for fighting suicide and preventing suicide.
But more, I want to talk about the way in which there can be greater
community consciousness and also address some remarks particularly
to those people here this morning who have been directly touched by
the tragedy of suicide. And I hope that this morning's gathering
gives you some comfort. I hope that it is a token for you that the
rest of the Australian community thinks about the sadness that you
have suffered. I hope that you do derive a little comfort, that you
try and perhaps find a little understanding in it. I have not personally
been touched by suicide in the sense that many of you in this gathering
have been, but as a local member of Parliament and as just an ordinary
member of society I have spoken often with people who have been directly
touched. And I know the anguished questioning, the why? How is it
that it happened to me, to a member of my family? Where did I go wrong?
What could I have done? All the multitude of questions and the introspections
and the self-criticism that inevitably happens and the sense of despair
that perhaps if something had been done, or not done, things might
have been different. And I know that for many of you, the opportunity
to converse with others who have been similarly touched, to have an
understanding that your community, your government, the churches of
Australia and the other community organisations of Australia have
a very, very active concern and a great desire to help and to understand.
As a Member of Parliament, I've been touched on a number of occasions
by lengthy discussions I've had with constituents of mine who've
lost young children, or young adult children as a result of suicide
and they've had a very profound effect on me. As a society, we
have to collectively try and understand some of the reasons why the
rate of suicide is so high. We can't, as a community, escape
responsibility for it. We can't, as a community, ignore the impact
of youth unemployment. We can't, as a community, ignore the impact
of weaker family bonds. We can't, as a community, ignore the
impact of a lessened sense of personal and family responsibility which
is a characteristic of modern, western society of the 1980s and the
1990s. Nor can we ignore the impact of the lessened role within our
community of institutions that stand for certain immutable values
and certain immutable principles of human conduct and human life.
The reasons why people take their own lives are mixed. There is no
one simple explanation but one thing that binds all of these incidents
together is of course, the enormous human tragedy that they represent
and the scars they leave, often forever, on those people who have
been directly affected.
Governments can help, they can fund programmes, they can recognise,
as I do, and as Dr Moyes does, that governments acting alone can't
solve or lessen the pain of this. Individuals acting alone can't
either, nor can organisations. We do need a shared endeavour, we need
the resources of the Government, we need the agencies of the Government,
we need the enormous moral commitment of organisations like the Wesley
Mission and we need the efforts of individuals in their own lives
to think about the alienation of a workmate, to wonder whether somebody
with whom we might be working feels left out of things and perhaps
we don't spend enough time talking to them about their personal
or family problems.
I once spoke to one of the telephone counsellors from an organisation
run by the De La Salle Brothers in Brisbane and he said that the thing
that had struck his organisation most about the telephone calls that
they'd had from young people was that the overwhelming bulk of
the telephone calls that they'd had from young people were young
people expressing a despair about the fact that they had absolutely
no capacity to communicate or to talk over their problems with anybody
in the world. They couldn't do it with their family members because
in some cases the family had disintegrated. In other cases, the family
unit members didn't care. Many of them didn't have jobs
and some of those that did have jobs found it quite impossible to
communicate with their workmates.
Now I think all of us can play a small part in spending a little more
time listening to people who seem to be making, I suppose, to put
it in one way, making heavy weather of their lives and who need help
and who need comfort and who need counsel.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I do want to associate my Government very
strongly with everything that can be done within the Australian community
to prevent suicide. It is a huge, collective social problem in this
country. It is a national disgrace that our suicide rate should be
as high as it is. It is the fault of no one thing, it is the fault
of no one group. We collectively, as a community must carry responsibility
and of course, the great tragedy is the opportunity of fulfilled lives
lost, the years of love, the years of contribution and the years of
playing an effective role within society that are lost.
But most importantly of all, it is an opportunity for me, on behalf
of the Australian community to extend our love and our understanding
and our thoughts to those here today and to those throughout our nation
who have been touched directly by the tragedy of suicide and to say
that we do care, we are trying to help. There are great organisations
like LifeForce, there is a government, there are communities who are
willing to help to try and lessen the pain and to try and help you
in the fullness of time to be more reconciled to and to be more at
peace with the tragedy that has overtaken your lives.
[Ends]