Page 3479 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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It is interesting that over that same period only 318 road accident fatalities occurred in the ACT. What is significant, therefore, is that, in fact, suicide is arguably a larger problem in our community than, in some senses, road accident fatalities. The entire community is aware of the tragedy of road fatalities, but perhaps many of us are not aware of the tragically high number of suicides that this report brings to light.
I am pleased that this report shows that our number of suicides per head of population in the ACT, averaged over the last 10 years, is just under the national average; but I do not really think this gives us, as a community, a great deal of room for comfort. We are all aware, I am sure, of cases of severe desperation which have led to suicides, or attempted suicides, particularly among our younger population. The figures on a national scale show some horrific facts. Among Australia's population aged between 15 and 24, suicide is responsible for one in every four deaths. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy - that so many young people do not have the opportunity to make so much of their lives. Suicide also affects males in far greater numbers than females. There are 355 male suicides for every 100 female suicides. In the 15 to 24 age bracket that figure rises to an astonishing 519 male suicides to every 100 female suicides. In Canberra a quick calculation tells me that the proportion of females committing suicide is higher than the national average. For every 100 females there are 314 male suicides. The staggering cost of suicide in social and family terms is something I do not think we have come to terms with. Over the last 10 years 22,372 Australians have committed suicide. That, I think, is a national tragedy. Our rate compares with that of the United States and Canada, and outranks many European countries. We also recorded in 1991 a significantly higher suicide rate than Japan. We owe it to a generation of Australians coming to terms with the grief caused by the loss of a loved one, especially when that loss is self-inflicted, to take a look at what measures we can adopt which might help those who are in need of our help.
There are those in our community who work very hard to prevent people from committing suicide, who strive to prevent it occurring. Organisations like Lifeline spring immediately to mind. Those people are often the silent and unsung heroes of this struggle. The most recent report of Lifeline Canberra indicates that during 1993-94 that organisation took nearly 2,000 calls which had a component of suicide in them. When suicide is costing our community more lives than motor vehicle accidents, in distinction from other jurisdictions, I think we have to pay more attention to one of Canberra's most severe and most secret social problems. Today's report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics identifies a severe social problem, not just for Canberra, of course, but also for the rest of Australia. We owe it to our community to identify some of the causes of that high suicide rate, and also to make a concerted effort to attempt to address the social consequences - the silently perceived but received social consequences of that high rate.
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