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Thank you very much Ross for your kind words, Gordon and Beverley Moyes, my other parliamentary colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
Whatever the circumstances and whatever the time I have always been delighted to be associated with the activities of the Wesley Mission. It is one of the great welfare organisations of Australia and the work that it does in so many fields to help the less fortunate, to extend the hand of practical Christian charity, it’s pioneering work in so many areas is really very widely respected all around Australia. It has a very long and rich history. It’s predecessor I think was the Central Methodist Mission which was the first as I understand it, welfare agency anywhere in the world to introduce the notion that if people felt like taking their own lives they should get on the phone and ring somebody and talk over the problem. Incredibly enough I think that was only in about 1960, it was only about forty years or more that Lifeline was inaugurated by the Central Methodist Mission under the leadership of that great figure in the Australian church and great figure of great causes Alan Walker who has been a tower of strength to so many people.
Through the years the Central Methodist Mission and then in its post-1977 description the Wesley Mission has continued this magnificent work and I really take the opportunity today as I have on other occasions and I hope to have the opportunity to do in the future to very warmly salute the work of the Wesley Mission and in particular I come here to salute it’s work in relation to the terrible problem of suicide. I say how delighted I am to hear Gordon Moyes talk about how we are making progress. It’s important that message goes out because so frequently in these difficult social areas because there seems to be almost a predisposition amongst those who comment or write about these issues to give the impression that there is really no hope, that it’s getting worse. And everything that is being done is a complete failure and it means that the world is completely coming to an end and it’s all the fault of a society that is rotten to the core and everything has got to be turned on its head. It’s the same sort of philosophy that is adopted by so many in relation to the challenge of drug abuse. The reality is that we are making some progress on that front. It’s slow, it’s very hard but the deaths from heroin overdoses have fallen significantly. You don’t hear about that very much because in a sense it’s not a fashionable outcome. That wasn’t meant to happen in the eyes of the doomsayers and the people who say it’s all the fault of society and we need to completely turn society on its head.
Now youth suicide, suicide of any age is the most moving traumatic thing that I imagine anybody could go through. As a local Member of Parliament for twenty-seven years I have had some discussions with constituents about everything. The ones that have had the lasting impact on me is to sit with the parents of a young man or a young woman who has taken their life when they apparently had everything in front of them. And to hear the anguished recriminations against themselves, to hear the sense of despair and hopelessness and that awful feeling that this is something that you can never expunge or erase from your experience or from your consciousness. And I remember attending a function in the Domain a few months ago in relation to suicide and it was a very moving function where a number of people who'd gone through that awful experience spoke of that and organisations such as the mission and the others that are associated with trying to do something about the problem, they offer to people who’d gone through that trauma and opportunity to share their pain and to talk about their experiences and for others who’d gone through the same situation and others who may not have but have empathy and have an understanding to reach out to them. And if ever you need friends and a loving community and wonderful organisations like the Wesley Mission, you need them on occasions such as this.
So I’ve come here today to do a number of things, I’ve come here to renew the commitment of the Coalition to the fight against the devastation of lives through suicide. About 2,500 people take their lives every year and in 1999 we established the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and we’re going to commit $40 million for four years from the year 2002 to build on this strategy with funds to help communities build local partnerships to protect their people against suicides. And this will bring to a total of the funding to fight suicide to an amount of $66 million.
As Gordon Moyes pointed out that the next target area is really men aged 25 to 44 years. That’s not to say we’re going to let up in relation to young men and women, particularly young men in rural areas which at one stage I think, embarrassingly and shamefully for Australia we had the highest youth suicide rate in the world amongst that, or within that particular age cohort.
A new priority under the strategy that we’re supporting, and it’s run by the National Advisory Council chaired by Professor Ian Webster, is we’re going to make a $2 million commitment to research and development, aimed at reducing suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning through motor vehicles. Sadly, carbon monoxide poisoning is the second most common form of suicide for both men and women in Australia. And there are also, as we all know, many tragic incidents of carbon monoxide poisoning where young children are involved. We’ll try and help reduce these incidents. We’ll fund the development and the trial of a cabin air monitor and obtain an Australian design rule for the introduction of the monitor in new Australian motor vehicles. We’ll also develop and introduce tail pipe modification devices for used cars.
The other thing I would like to say today and say very positively how we have here with the partnership between the Wesley Mission and Percomm, an Australian company, we have a great example of the social coalition at work. We have a great example of what Ross Cameron spoke of. That the government can’t do it all, although the government has got to go on doing a lot, and go on providing a lot of money, but the real skill and the real expertise in so many of these difficult social area is held in the hands of the people who work in great organisations like the Wesley Mission. And we do need the help and the support of commercial organisations and I’ve been greatly encouraged by the large number of Australian companies that have risen to the occasion in relation to matching money provided by governments. My mantra is that not so much that businesses should give more although I’d be very happy if they did that as well, but rather that more businesses should give and what I think the social coalition has been able to do is to extend the network of businesses that provide funds.
So amongst other things ladies and gentlemen, I want to announce today that the government will provide a $500, 000 grant to Wesley Mission to support their LifeForce work on suicide prevention. Can I also say that that money is allocated from the National Suicide Prevention strategy and it is going to matched in full by a grant from the Percomm Company. This is a wonderful example, a terrific gesture by that company and can I thank it and congratulate it and hold it up as an exemplar of the sort of activity that other companies should do. And that will provide the Wesley Mission and its LifeForce with a million dollars to expand its activities and to do its good work particularly to help men in the 25 – 44 age group which is now the age group and the age cohort most at risk of suicide.
I’m also announcing today a further $2.4 million in project funding for 22 community groups across Australia to pursue local suicide prevention activities. I won’t list all of them and the details are going to be provided by Michael Wooldridge in a separate release but they’ll include a project such as $355, 000 for Anglicare Top End to establish and coordinate a Northern Territory wide suicide intervention trainers network and the Coalition has started this concerted fight with the aim of saving Australian lives from the despair and the tragedy of suicide.
Ladies and Gentlemen, can I again take this opportunity of thanking all of the welfare organisations of Australia, not only but of course most particularly because I am here today at Lottie Stewart Hospital not only but certainly including the Wesley Mission and all the other great organisations that do so much because of their dedication, their sensitivity, their coalface experience and their sheer understanding of the human cost of suffering, of poverty, of suicide, of family break up, of alcohol and other substance abuse, of domestic violence, and all the other things that cause misery and unhappiness within our community. We will never I guess achieve the utopian world where all of those things can be banished. But we can make a difference if we work together. And the important thing to say to the community is that you can make a difference if you work together. There are too many people who run around saying look it’s all too hard, it won’t work, it’s all the fault of this rotten society in which we live, and until we bring this rotten society to its knees we are not going to get any justice. Now, of course that is absolute nonsense, it’s a counsel of despair, it’s a counsel of social anarchy and what is really needed is the sort of cooperative effort that is demonstrated here today. And what is also needed is a communication to the public that when you do get good results, when you do apply the right programs then you do achieve progress and this is happening with youth suicide and I’m glad Gordon mentioned it, and I’ll mention it every time I make a speech on suicide from now on. And the same thing applies with the campaign against drugs. Sure we’ve got a long way to go and sure the heroin drought has made some contribution to the fall in the number of deaths but so have the measures governments have undertaken and we’ve got to keep fighting these social challenges, and we’ve got to keep our will and our nerve and importantly of all we’ve got to share our capacities with each other. We can’t do it on our own. We can provide money, and we should, because it is the community’s resources and the community that needs help. But we need your help. We need the help of individuals, we need the help of the business community and can I thank Percomm very warmly for what it has done. It’s a very very generous gesture and it is the sort of example for the rest of the business community that I applaud very very warmly.
Thank you.
(ends)