E&OE...
Thank you very much Dawn, Mr Tony Eviston, the Chairman of Lifeline Australia, ladies and gentlemen. Lifeline is a great Australian institution. I remember as a young person when it was founded by the late Alan Walker when he was Superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission in Sydney, at the time it was regarded as a revolutionary concept, the idea that people in distress would pick up the phone and ring somebody and ask for advice over the phone.
We look back on it now and we wonder why anybody regarded it at the time as being unusual or revolutionary such has been the change in attitudes to communications and such has been, I suppose, the falling away of the inhibitions and barriers that prevented people then and still prevent people from sharing their difficult emotional circumstances and their tragic family and personal circumstances with total strangers. I think it's a wonderful organisation and I'm really proud on behalf of the Commonwealth Government to announce today that we're going to provide $8.2 million funding over four years to help Lifeline cover the technical costs of answering the growing number of calls that they receive.
Lifeline now operates from 60 locations nationally and it's also operating overseas in many countries. Now there are more than 10,000 volunteers, 4000 of whom work as trained volunteer telephone counsellors and somewhere in Australia there is a new call to Lifeline every minute. It has saved countless lives. The counsellors have persuaded hundreds, indeed thousands of Australians over the 41 years of Lifeline's existence to think of an alternative other than taking their own life and that is a wonderful thing.
There are 30 calls each day from people who are contemplating suicide and there are three people each day who are at imminent risk of suicide. And the human contribution that people make overwhelmingly as volunteers to prevent people carrying through those desperate intentions is something that we as a society should be profoundly indebted for.
What this funding is going to do is to cover the day to day operational and technical costs of Lifeline's new national call system which is currently being implemented and it will mean that calls will first of all go to their nearest local centre but if they are busy the call will be answered by the next available telephone counsellor within Australia. And the whole idea is that all the calls that are made can desirably be taken.
This Government funding will assist this new technology. I do want to make it clear that this Government funding is not designed to replace other funding. Lifeline deeply values the sponsorship and support that it receives from the private sector and I would ask the private sector to go on supporting at the existing and hopefully an even larger degree into the future. But the Government takes the view that this service is so fundamental and so important a service to the Australian community that it should be supported in this fashion.
I have taken a strong personal interest in the operations of Lifeline over the years and I want to make it very clear on behalf of the Government that this is a vital human service to the Australian community and we would be a poorer community without it. It needs help, it will continue to get Federal Government assistance and I hope that the announcement that I have made today is a demonstration of that.
I want to record again my admiration for people in Lifeline, to pay tribute to the vision of the late Alan Walker in founding it and to thank the staff of Lifeline and all the volunteers. I know on a personal basis a number of people who volunteer their time to work as Lifeline counsellors. They derive enormous personal satisfaction from it and I think it is a wonderful example of Australian volunteerism and a magnificent organisation that does a great deal to help people with profound difficulties, people who aren't as fortunate as the rest of us who have loving and supporting relationships through our families.
And it's a reminder that there are a lot of people in our community who don't have that, and it's through no fault of their own. They're alone, they need help, and to think that they can pick up the phone and get someone on the end of it who will give them a bit of hope is a magnificent thing and the value of that, not only in saving lives but in transforming lives, is enormous. And I hope today's announcement will help that wonderful cause. I wish it well and I thank you for the privilege of being here.
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