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15 December 2001
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Good news and a message of real hope
By MICHAEL DUFFY
15dec01
WE sceptical journalists are not supposed to believe in – let alone write about – good news, so I ignored it for as long as I could, hoping it would go away.
The facts, however, are beyond doubt: something has gone incredibly right for many Australians.
It all began when, while following John Howard a week before the election, I found myself at the launch of the Government's new suicide prevention strategy, at a hospital run by the Wesley Mission.
The first unexpected revelation was from Wesley's leader, the Reverend Gordon Moyes, who mentioned in his speech that Howard had long been concerned with homeless youth.
He had called Moyes soon after being elected in 1996 and met with him in his first week in office to discuss the problem, for which more money was soon found.
Learning of such speed and personal interest in a prime minister widely portrayed as hard-hearted and unimaginative would surprise many people, I suspect.
There were more revelations that day. Howard then spoke, claiming that the number of Australians committing suicide had declined.
As suicide is rife in this country, and as the suicide deaths of young males in particular was one of the most alarming stories of the 1990s, this knocked me over.
I assumed it must be just some blip in the long-term trends – but it is not.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this week show the number of suicides has been decreasing for some years.
In 1998, 364 males aged 15-24 killed themselves. In 1999, the figure dropped to 309. Last year it was down to 263, a decrease of 28 per cent in three years.
Most other age groups have also seen similar significant declines.
In a world where you sometimes feel everything is getting worse, this is something to feel good about.
Why has the number of deaths dropped so dramatically? The most likely possibility is that the concerted efforts of private charities, government workers, and many others have increased public awareness of the risks of suicide, and trained people to detect and respond to suicidal tendencies in those around them.
THE leading provider of such education has been the Wesley Mission's LifeForce program, which has been running for six years.
Randall Pieterse, the national manager of LifeForce, says that about 90 per cent of suicidal people do not really want to die – they just want relief from their emotional suffering.
In addition, 80 per cent of suicidal people give indications of their state.
When you put these two facts together, you see how effective it is to identify and help these sufferers.
LifeForce has trained some 10,000 people to do this.
The focus has been on regional areas, as these have higher annual suicide rates than the cities (17 per 100,000 people compared with 12).
LifeForce is receiving increasing numbers of requests from community groups and employers to train their staff.
Recently the Country Women's Association helped it visit 30 communities for training in NSW.
Next year will see an expansion because – and this was my third surprise that morning during the election campaign – a private company named Percomm has contributed $500,000 to LifeForce, which the Government is now matching.
Percomm's generous donation is a perfect example of mutual obligation, the Howard ideal whereby business contributes to charity.
Many have been sceptical about whether this would work – but here is half a million dollars arguing to the contrary. (Wesley also has many other examples of hefty corporate donations.)
The sceptics cannot even be cynical about the motives of Percomm, a company which provides call centres and other support for businesses like the Commonwealth Bank.
I have found no mention of the donation, let alone positive publicity about the company, on the News Limited database, and when I spoke to two of the company's directors, they were so modest I learnt almost nothing.
Possibly, as the three above examples suggest, John Howard has changed Australia more than most of us are aware.
"Things are improving," he said that day at the Wesley hospital. "Too many people say you can't improve things until society, which is rotten, is changed.
"This is not true – it's a counsel of despair. We can change things if we try. But government can't do it by itself, which is why we've been building social coalitions since we came to office.
"The real skill and the real expertise needed to address many of these social problems lies with people and organisations like Wesley."
He then pointed to one final example as evidence that his approach was working: the decline in the number of heroin deaths in the past year.
Once again the figures seem to support him.
On Thursday The Australian newspaper reported that the number of overdose deaths dropped an amazing 25 per cent in the past year.
According to Louisa Degenhardt, a lecturer with the National Drug and Alcohol Research Council, the decrease is due to increased treatment for addicts.
"The state and commonwealth governments have put a lot of money into this," she said. "The figures suggest it has paid off."
Many people, including me, have argued that the only way to reduce the numbers of such deaths was to decriminalise heroin.
These figures suggest that maybe John Howard is right, and we were wrong.
To contact LifeForce for training call 1800 100 024
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