WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2016
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WE’RE FOR VICTORIA
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BUDGIE
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3300 COPS
WANTED
Police say urgent triple 0 calls ‘regularly’ held for an hour
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VICTORIA’S crime wave is swamping short-staffed police who are regularly unavailable for an hour or more
to answer calls where lives could be at
risk, senior officers say.
An extra 3300 officers are needed
by 2022, the police union says.
One in four general duties senior
sergeants surveyed said they “regularly” held “Priority 1” jobs, such as
armed robberies, serious car accidents
and home invasions, as they scrambled to deal with record crime.
Stations even struggled to put patrol cars on the road, police said.
EXCLUSIVE
WES HOSKING
AND DAVID HURLEY
An unprecedented Police Association of Victoria study surveyed 329
senior sergeants, who laid bare chronic understaffing they said sometimes
left them unable to send officers to
jobs at all.
The public and police officers were
being put at grave risk, they said.
“A fix to this police numbers crisis
cannot be delayed any longer,’’ Police
Association secretary Ron Iddles said
Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told the Herald Sun that work to
deploy more officers where they were
most needed was well under way.
“We know we are stretched in a
range of areas,” Mr Ashton said.
“The (staff) modelling is around
avoiding getting this situation again.
“We are not sitting back,” he said.
Of general duties senior sergeants
surveyed:
84 PER CENT said call-outs regularly went unattended.
89 PER CENT felt the time jobs were
being held risked public safety.
26 PER CENT said “Priority 1” jobs
were regularly held for an hour or
more.
67 PER CENT regularly struggled to
get police vans on the road.
The 3301 extra police being demanded by 2022 — 550 a year — are
mostly first-response officers, but also
investigative and special-unit staff.
The union says there are 115 fewer
first-response police than in 2014.
“Members are at breaking point,”
Mr Iddles said.
The former homicide squad detective said: “They are overworked,
29.10.16 – 5.11.16
stressed and placing themselves in
dangerous situations more and more
because they are working at underresourced stations. This needs to be
addressed urgently.”
The union wants the growth areas
of Casey, Wyndham and Whittlesea
to receive the biggest influx of recruits
to achieve a target ratio of 102 first responders for every 100,000 residents.
The association believes some
areas are currently operating with as
many as 23 fewer frontline officers
than deemed necessary.
CONTINUED PAGE 4
MELBOURNE,
IT’S TIME TO PLAY
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04 NEWS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2016 HERALDSUN.COM.AU
STRETCHED TO THE LIMIT
3300
police
sought
FROM PAGE 1
“It is plain dangerous when
first-response
police
are
spread so thinly that their response to urgent jobs is being
delayed,’’ Mr Iddles said.
“Not only does this place
the community at risk, but it
places police themselves at increased risk of injury and
stress as they are constantly
forced to make difficult resource allocation decisions
that could ultimately have
fatal consequences.
“Priority 1 jobs should be
just that: priority No.1.”
Mr Ashton said the staff allocation model — that from
next year would deploy 300
extra first-response police,
mostly to growth areas — was
nearly complete.
It factors in not just population but crime, call-out demand and time to attend jobs.
It will include other factor, like
socio-economic disadvantage.
Mr Ashton questioned the
union’s findings on delays
with Priority 1 calls, saying it
didn’t marry with data from
the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority,
which fields triple 0 calls. Its
figures show that of 139,000
jobs allocated to police in the
past 12 months, only 1 per cent
had been held for any time.
But the police union said
ESTA dispatching a call didn’t
guarantee a unit would attend.
Senior-sergeants said they
regularly faced no-win situations. One said: “For example,
family violence, over a hot aggravated burglary, over a
dangerous driver, over an
armed hold-up alarm.”
Another said: “Last night,
my staff had a choice between
a five-car prang, a person injured/trapped, and a lost 12year-old girl.”
Police Minister Lisa Neville
said the government had
funded 1156 police personnel.
AREAS MOST IN NEED OF
FIRST RESPONDER POLICE
Service
area
OFFICER NUMBERS
2014
2016
2022 target
Casey Wyndham Whittlesea Glen Eira* Boroondara Whitehorse Moreland Monash Hume Manningham Melton Melbourne** Bayside* Knox Geelong Brimbank Darebin Maribyrnong Yarra Ranges Cardinia Moonee Valley Stonnington Banyule Hobsons Bay Maroondah 165
88
118
49
111
94
87
113
151
53
76
355
61
126
196
159
129
57
143
71
94
96
110
87
113
152
105
126
47
95
83
90
109
145
49
84
332
48
115
204
153
125
60
136
86
102
96
111
74
99
341 (+189)
269 (+164)
243 (+117)
159 (+112)
190 (+95)
177 (+94)
181 (+91)
200 (+91)
228 (+83)
131 (+82)
161 (+77)
406 (+74)
108 (+60)
171 (+56)
259 (+55)
203 (+50)
166 (+41)
93 (+33)
164 (+28)
112 (+26)
125 (+23)
118 (+22)
133 (+22)
96 (+22)
120 (+21)
First-response police officers sourced from TPAV
* Glen Eira PSA separated into Glen Eira & Bayside LGAs.
** Melbourne PSA based on residential population only and does not include
large ‘daily population’. For this reason, Melbourne currently has higher
first-response ration of police to population than the state average, and it has
been assumed that additional police will be required to meet population growth.
HOW THE EXTRA POLICE
WOULD BE ALLOCATED
FIRST RESPONDERS FAMILY VIOLENCE OTHER Highway Patrol, Criminal Investigation
incl
TOTAL 1932
470
899
3301
Source: Police Association of Victoria. Extra police required by 01/06/2022.
Agonising delay for victims
A NEAR half-hour wait for
police felt like an eternity for
Richa Walia when four
thieves stormed her home.
Days later, it took 55 minutes for officers to arrive when
youths circled her Caroline
Springs property in the early
morning, taking photos.
Ms Walia — who with her
parents and brother, 16, woke
to intruders using a rock to
smash a glass door on July 16
— twice phoned triple 0.
WES HOSKING
The intruders, armed with
poles and baseball bats,
demanded the keys to the
family’s vehicles before taking
them, a mobile phone and
expensive basketball shoes.
“We have more cars and
our first fear was they were
going to tell their friends and
they were going to come and
get them,” Ms Walia, 26, said.
“The other fear was they
would come back and harm
us. You think you are safe in
your own home, but obviously
you’re not.”
The family have had difficulty sleeping and no longer
have confidence in the police.
Ms Walia called triple 0
three times in the second incident.“You think that’s the
emergency line and it’s an
emergency and they will be
there immediately,” she said.
Two teens were arrested.
[email protected]
EMBARRASSING CHOICES FOR HARD-PRESSED OFFICERS
OUR police resources are
now at breaking point.
Nearly 330 senior
sergeants told us police
stations were chronically
understaffed.
They’re struggling to get
patrols on the road, cannot
get to every call and
community expectations are
not being met.
The state’s growing
population, skyrocketing
crime rate and the increased
complexity of policing tasks
mean that many calls for
assistance are now going
unattended.
Eighty-four per cent of
senior sergeants spoken to
say they do not have the firstresponse police numbers
required to get to all public
calls for assistance.
RON
IDDLES
They told us about the
stress of deciding whether to
send resources to “very
serious” crimes or just
“serious” crimes.
For most reported crimes,
the community expects that
Victoria Police will respond
within 10 minutes. Sadly, at
the moment, this is far from
the case.
One senior sergeant
spoke of the shift he had just
worked. He had to choose
between sending police to
attend a five-car accident, an
injured person trapped in a
building, to take the report of
a missing 12-year-old girl or
deal with a shoplifter being
held by a store owner.
He described this
situation as “embarrassing”.
It is embarrassing to have
to call victims at each scene
and say that police were on
their way “but that they
might be a while”.
The inability to deliver
what the public expects is
becoming increasingly
confronting for officers,
many of whom now find that
their community’s patience
is wearing thin.
Melbourne is our fastestgrowing capital and has
often been rated one of the
great liveable cities, partly
because our streets have
been traditionally safe with
our lifestyle second to none.
But it is also true that
crime is increasing by double
figures each year, and
everyone can see the impact
this is having.
Enormous workloads
coupled with police
shortages compromise the
ability of officers to do their
jobs and make inroads to
reverse this disturbing trend.
Eighty-nine per cent of
senior sergeants spoken to
say they need to delay a
police response for so long
that it is a risk to community
safety. They report that
administration takes police
away from community
policing. Where technology
can be improved to reduce
administration, it should be.
But that is no substitute for
boots on the ground.
We are not trying to hold
on to a bygone era. We are
trying to stop an erosion of
police services that once
effectively reduced crime.
Our analysis shows that
we need 3301 new police
officers by 2022 to keep
Victorians safe. That is a
modest and sustainable 550
police a year over the next
six years, especially when
you consider that our
population is tipped to grow
by more than 100,000 each
year over the same period.
The triple 0 calls to police
are increasing faster than
population itself, yet there
are fewer first-response
police in stations today than
there were in 2014. In its last
Budget, the Victorian
Government promised 400
extra police over two years.
While welcome, this
commitment doesn’t go close
to meeting growing needs
and community expectation.
It is time to stop law-andorder electioneering that
leaves police constantly
playing catch-up with crime.
The only way for this to be
achieved is for all sides of
politics to plan for police
numbers well in advance.
This must be done today
before community safety is
further compromised and
police numbers fall further
and further behind.
RON IDDLES IS SECRETARY OF THE
POLICE ASSOCIATION OF VICTORIA
MHSE01Z02MA - V1
NEWS 05
HERALDSUN.COM.AU WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2016
MAKE OUR STATE SAFE
TWO HOURS TO
GET TO MY GIRL
Pain lingers for mum
THE family of Rekiah O’Donnell, shot dead by her boyfriend in 2013, say they are
bitterly disappointed by the
length of time people in danger are being forced to wait for
police help.
It took police officers two
hours to respond when Rekiah and her boyfriend, Nelson
Lai, were having a violent
dispute.
Two months after that incident, Rekiah, 22, was shot
dead by Lai when he was coming down from an ice binge.
Rekiah’s mother, Kerryn
Robertson, said she was
shocked at the number of
police jobs that were regularly
held for one hour or more.
“I would hope we would be
better than this, three years
on,” Ms Robertson said.
“Given all the discussion
around domestic violence
since then, and the knowledge
there is about the issue now,
you would have thought
police response times would
be better in 2016.”
Ms Robertson was told by
Sunshine police that no one
could come out after she rang
triple 0 on August 11, 2013.
She had made the call after
hearing on the phone a
blazing row between Rekiah
and Lai.
Ms Robertson said police
even advised her and her husband to enter Lai’s house to
investigate.
“It was terrible to have to
wait two hours for police,” Ms
Robertson said. “But what I
found just as bad was police
advising us to go into the
house ourselves.
“It was like they couldn’t be
V1 - MHSE01Z02MA
DAVID HURLEY
bothered. It wasn’t the first
time and police would have
known about him, he would
have been on their records.
“We had to ring triple 0
twice to get somebody to
come out.
“A lot can happen in a few
minutes, let alone an hour.”
Last year, Ms Robertson
made a submission to the
Royal Commission into Family Violence.
“I just heard this great big
argument on the other end,
most of it from Nelson, swearing, threatening, and telling
someone to get out, which I
presumed was Rekiah,’’ she
wrote.
“The phone then hung up
and despite numerous phone
calls and texts from me to his
phone and Rekiah’s, he refused to answer again, even
though I threatened in text
messages to him that I would
call the police if he didn’t tell
us what was going on.’’
Ms Robertson and her husband drove 45 minutes to
Sunshine North and, after repeatedly knocking, called the
police. But she had to call
triple 0 twice before they were
phoned back.
Rekiah was shot in the
head by Lai in November 2013
as he came down from ice. She
had suffered 14 months of
abuse, including repeated
bashings and threats to kill.
He was convicted of manslaughter in April 2015, successfully beating a murder
charge by arguing he didn’t
know the gun was loaded.
[email protected]
We had to ring
triple 0 twice to get
somebody to come out.
A lot can happen in a
few minutes, let alone
an hour
KERRYN ROBERTSON, MUM OF REKIAH
Kerryn Robertson holds a picture of her daughter, Rekiah, shot dead by her abusive boyfriend. Picture: TIM CARRAFA
26 OPINION
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2016 HERALDSUN.COM.AU
Putting boots
on the ground
P
ROTECTING Victorians
from crime means more
police on the front line.
Crime statistics reported by
the Herald Sun are stark.
Crime has increased by 13.4 per cent.
In some regional areas it has more
than doubled.
But statistics alone do not tell the
story of a state under siege by
criminals, including young offenders
who return to the streets on bail, or
after a short term in detention, to
commit further crime.
Now, 329 senior sergeants across
the state, the supervisors who make
the decisions on which calls can be
met and how quickly, are finding
themselves stressed and often
overwhelmed.
While the community rightly
expects a call for help to be answered
within five to 10 minutes, this doesn’t
always happen. Some senior
sergeants say they must decide
between “serious crime’’ calls and
“very serious crimes’’.
The Police Association survey
found 26 per cent of general duties
senior sergeants regularly held
Priority 1 jobs for an hour or more.
Some 80 per cent reported jobs
regularly went unattended.
There is a growing culture of
lawlessness. Police Association
secretary Ron Iddles says the state’s
rapidly increasing population, the
rising crime rate and what he calls the
“increase in the complexity of
policing tasks’’ are delaying response
times.
Taskforces to combat cyber crime,
youth crime and bikie gangs place
heavy demands on the force.
Chief Commissioner Graham
Ashton is working hard to deal with a
very complex and evolving culture of
criminality and, while there can be no
doubt his taskforces are effective, he
simply lacks the broader resources he
needs.
The Police Association is calling
for 3301 new police officers by 2022,
or a modest 550 officers a year over
six years when compared with a
projected population growth of
100,000 a year.
The Andrews Government must
respond. There is no other way to cut
back on a crime wave described by
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy as a
tsunami.
Many officers are at breaking
point. One senior sergeant in the
space of a shift had to choose
between sending police to a five-car
accident, helping an injured person
trapped in a building, dealing with a
report of a missing 12-year-old girl, or
responding to a shoplifter being held
by a store owner.
Families who have had to wait for
police say their lives were in danger.
It took police a half-hour to arrive
when thieves invaded a Caroline
Springs property.
The family made two calls to 000
after the youths armed with baseball
smashed their way through a glass
door, demanding keys to the family’s
cars before casually driving them
away.
The rise in crime also poses
problems when offenders are brought
to justice. Juvenile crime continues
when teenagers are put in detention.
A WorkSafe report seen by the
Herald Sun says staff are in fear of
their lives following a rampage by
young offenders at Malmsbury.
Staff believe offenders who broke
into administration offices were able
to access employee records. One
officer said a recently released
“client’’, as young offenders are
called, appeared outside his home
shouting threats and insults.
Such brazen lawlessness is
unacceptable. The only way
Victorians can be protected is for the
government to put more police boots
on the ground. Lives are at stake.
Dan’s road tax crash
P
REMIER Daniel Andrews has
destroyed the credibility of his
own creation by ruling out the
car congestion tax proposed by
Infrastructure Victoria.
Mr Andrews established
Infrastructure Victoria at a cost to the
taxpayer of $40 million over four
years.
Now that the Premier has swept
the ground from under it, Victorians
can only ask why Infrastructure
Victoria was needed in the first place.
It has seven board members and a
CEO clearly at odds with the
Premier. Chief executive Michel
Masson says he will continue to fight
for a road pricing scheme and the
recommendation still holds.
This surely puts Mr Masson and
Mr Andrews on a collision course.
The Herald Sun condemned the
congestion tax, which will be a relief
to motorists.
A regressive tax is the wrong way
to go and poses the question of what
taxpayers are getting for what
appears to be another waste of their
money.
Dumping the East West Link,
which is costing taxpayers $1.2 billion
on latest figures, remains a case in
contention. Infrastructure Victoria
still has it as part of its long-term
transport strategy.
The state’s biggest infrastructure
project was signed, sealed and on the
way to being delivered when this flipflopping Premier tore up the
contracts.
The Premier has done the same
thing over the CFA dispute by
supporting a takeover attempt of the
volunteer organisation by the
hardline United Firefighters Union,
which is likely to cost taxpayers at
least $160 million.
It’s no way to run a state.
ROAD DEATHS THIS YEAR ROAD DEATHS LAST YEAR
221
192
Victorian deaths in 2016, compared with the same day last year
FUTURE
H
ERE’S how important
and contentious policies
are considered these
days. A government sets
up an arm’s-length
body to make an exhaustive
assessment of what the community
will need to function successfully
for the next 30 years or so.
That body then puts together
possible policy solutions. After
many, many months of work in
which experts canvass and cost the
policy proposals, the body compiles
it all in a report. Before the report is
released to the public, it is given to
the media so that early on the day
of release the report’s main points
are on the front pages of the
newspapers and are leading
morning radio news bulletins. That
means that as the report is made
available to the public, political
leaders are already responding to
what’s in it, ruling things out.
That is how a congestion tax put
forward by Infrastructure Victoria
in its 1000-page report yesterday
died at birth. According to
Infrastructure Victoria, which the
Andrews Government established
to try to extract at least some of the
politics from infrastructure policy,
a new transport pricing scheme
based on a series of levies for car
travel between different sections of
the city could have served as a
category killer when it came to
dealing with traffic congestion.
Its report made the highly
challenging point that it is folly for
governments and the community
to expect that they can somehow
build their way out of congestion.
That is, simply building more roads
to handle rising numbers of
vehicles and drivers can only ever
be a temporary fix.
The most effective way to
reduce congestion in a sustainable
way would be to change behaviour.
That could be done by imposing a
direct cost on road users so that
they think twice about hopping
into the car to drive across town.
Who among us wants to hear
that? Premier Daniel Andrews
didn’t. He ruled it out not long
SHAUN
CARNEY
after Opposition Leader Matthew
Guy described a congestion tax as
“madness” and “lazy”.
So farewell, congestion tax, we
hardly knew you.
Politically, it made sense. We
might have fixed four-year terms
but really politics is now just one
ceaseless campaign. Two years
from now, the parties will be in the
final weeks before the election. In
days of yore, two years might have
seemed an eternity, but not in
today’s environment of social
media, instantaneous judgment
and infinite distractions.
In any event, the numbers in the
state parliament are so close that
neither side is especially keen on
being brave on something as
difficult to sell as a congestion tax.
But having dispensed with that
idea, it still leaves Victoria with the
problem the report was tasked with
solving: how do we organise the
state to continue to prosper and
how do we pay for it? The fact is
that if we’re not in the behaviour
change business, then we have to
be in the building business. And
that is going to cost big money.
Infrastructure Victoria’s report
is terrific work. It’s not restricted to
roads and rail. It also looks at how
best to use our physical assets in
policing, health, education,
housing, energy and water.
The Western Bulldogs have
given us one of the greatest
sporting stories of our lives and
underscored the rising prominence
of Melbourne’s west as a booming
population region. We have to deal
with the infrastructure challenge
this region’s soaring population
presents — while the outer reaches
to the city’s north and south boom
as well.
By the middle of the century
Melbourne is on track to regain its
status as Australia’s biggest city, a
position it surrendered to Sydney
after the 1890s economic
depression.
Politics as usual, with
governments and Oppositions
cherrypicking a couple of
electorally targeted projects and
touting them endlessly to the
exclusion of other policies, cannot
continue.
If Melbourne is going to become
Jail term the only answer
T
HE lack of justice in the
Victorian justice system was
on display again this week
when two thugs responsible
for a brutal attack walked free from
court with community corrections
orders. How can two adult men
repeatedly kick a man in the head
and not serve a jail term?
Brothers James and Matthew
Bruce followed their 33-year-old
victim to a carpark after a brief
interaction outside a Prahran
nightclub sparked by a racial
comment from James that the
victim believed was directed at
him. In the carpark they assaulted
the victim in an attack that
magistrate Carolene Gwynn
described as “sickening”,
“cowardly” and “savage”.
Their victim was repeatedly
punched and kicked in the head,
even as he lay unconscious on the
ground. While one brother bent
RITA
PANAHI
over the victim punching him in
the head, the other kicked him
viciously in the groin. The victim’s
head was then repeatedly kicked,
the force of the kicks so powerful
that they propelled the victim’s
body along the ground. All of this
was caught on CCTV footage.
Watching the assault, it’s hard
to believe that the victim wasn’t
killed and his injuries were limited
to cuts, bruises and shattered teeth.
The vision of the attack is clear
and ghastly; one can understand
why magistrate Ms Gwynn used
such strong language to describe
the horror inflicted on the victim.
But then she gave the brothers a
stern talking-to and sent them
home with community corrections
orders.
“I shouldn’t allow myself to be
so overwhelmed by that footage
given other factors” Ms Gwynn
said.
“There were numerous
occasions when (James) could have
stopped ... but he remained
undaunted.”
So, despite the robust rhetoric in
calling the assault “sickening and
disturbing” and a “savage attack on
a defenceless man”, and speaking
about the community growing
“sick” of such violence, she went
ahead and thrashed them with a
lettuce leaf.
Matthew, who pleaded guilty to
affray, will be required to complete
MHSE01Z02MA - V1
OPINION 27
HERALDSUN.COM.AU WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2016
AT RISK
Senate should
lead the fight
against suicide
T
the nation’s premier city, it cannot
afford to plod along, going from
one project to the next. As it is, the
Andrews Government is at the
beginning of the biggest transport
infrastructure spending program in
the state’s history, with the Metro
rail project as the centrepiece.
Whoever is governing the state
after the next election will have to
double down on the existing
program if Victoria is going to
avoid the worst effects of its
population boom. How bad could it
be? Imagine our trains and roads
even more jammed up than now.
And multiply the existing
discrepancies between the services
available to the people in the inner
and middle suburbs and those in
the ever-expanding outer suburbs.
Add in greater distortions in the
relative values of housing in those
areas.
Melbourne could end up being a
very angry, unhappy and unequal
place — a recipe for an increase in
social unrest.
The worst result would be if the
government and Opposition do the
obvious thing and commit to
building what Infrastructure
Victoria says is the most urgent
project, the North East Link that
hooks up the M80 Ring Road to
the Eastern Freeway and kick most
of the report into the long grass.
Like it or not, the state is going
to need to raise many tens of
billions of dollars more and get us
looking 30 years into the future if
we’re going to become Number
One and like it.
SHAUN CARNEY IS A HERALD SUN
COLUMNIST AND ADJUNCT ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF POLITICS AT MONASH
UNIVERSITY
to such brutal behaviour
200 hours of community work as
part of his 14-month order, while
James, who pleaded guilty to affray
and intentionally causing serious
injury, was sentenced to a two-year
order involving 400 hours of
community work. Both will be
required to undergo counselling.
How many more manifestly
inadequate sentences must
Victorians endure before
politicians acknowledge that the
system is broken and in desperate
need of wholesale change?
Just how ferocious must an
assault be for those responsible to
serve a prison term?
Surely, in a civilised society, the
act of repeatedly kicking a man as
he lies helpless on the ground
would lead to a term behind bars,
even if it’s just a few months.
Courts are failing to meet
community expectations in
sentencing for violent crimes, with
V1 - MHSE01Z02MA
judges preoccupied with the rights
and future prospects of offenders
instead of punishing and deterring
criminal behaviour.
Is it any wonder that thugs
roaming our streets believe they’re
untouchable?
These delinquents, emboldened
by a weak judiciary, have no fear of
authority — including the police.
Victoria’s soaring crime rate
includes a marked increase in the
number of thugs attacking police
and resisting arrest.
Almost one in two police
Victorian police officers have been
assaulted in the past year alone.
“Forty-eight per cent of our
members have been assaulted in
some way in the last 12 months,”
said Police Association secretary
Ron Iddles.
Police are undermanned,
demoralised and under attack.
When one of their own is
assaulted, they have little
confidence that the culprit will be
appropriately punished.
The Bruce brothers are
fortunate that they weren’t facing a
murder or manslaughter charge,
given the viciousness of their
attack.
We all know that a single punch
can kill and yet these two delivered
blow after blow without any care
for the consequences.
The court heard the men were
remorseful and ashamed of their
behaviour.
Well, that’s just dandy — but
that doesn’t change the fact that
they repeatedly kicked an
unconscious man’s skull like it was
a soccer ball.
RITA PANAHI IS A HERALD SUN
COLUMNIST
[email protected]
@ritapanahi
HE Australian Bureau of
Statistics released the
suicide figures for 2015 last
week and they were
shocking: 3027 deaths. It is the first
time suicides have exceeded 3000
in a year and is an increase of 5.4
per cent on the previous 12
months. It represents more than
eight Australians a day taking their
lives — and it is a national tragedy.
Many complex issues have
contributed to the year-on-year
increase: there is a rise in the
number of men aged over 85; there
are vulnerable young people who
are feeling less resilient; there is a
disproportionate number of deaths
among Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities.
The suicide rate for all males
was 19.4 deaths per 100,000 people
— 2292 lives — and for females it
was 6.2 deaths per 100,000, or 735.
Those figures are made worse
when you consider the suicide rate
among our indigenous people is
twice that of the non-indigenous
community: 25.5 deaths per
100,000 people compared with 12.7
deaths per 100,000 respectively.
More than a quarter of
teenagers aged 15 to 17 who took
their lives in 2015 were indigenous.
When the figures were released
last week, they got little attention,
maybe because the focus was on
sporting events in Sydney and in
Melbourne — but maybe because
in a 24-hour news cycle, they don’t
shock anymore. Or perhaps they
are too overwhelming.
To put the figures in some
perspective, in 2015 there were
1207 deaths on Australia’s roads.
Suicides outnumbered the road
toll almost three to one.
For 16 years I have dealt with
the consequences of suicide as
chairman of beyondblue: the
sadness, the pain you can’t see, the
guilt felt by many family, friends
and work colleagues left behind.
Adding to the challenge is the
number of Australians each year
who attempt to take their lives:
more than 65,000 people.
Something’s got to change,
starting with the public discussion
and the priority given by
governments to this appalling
situation. But it is not only up to
governments, who are committing
more and more money to suicide
prevention, but to ordinary citizens
and the media. Just as we have
changed the discussion about
depression and mental illness, so
we must elevate the discussion
about suicide.
No family, no friends are better
off when an individual takes their
life.
I was so upset by the suicide
figures that I emailed every
member of the Australian Senate
last week. I appealed to them to
take up the challenge to reduce
these unacceptable figures.
I asked the Senate as a whole to
accept responsibility for a Great
Social Purpose in a transparent,
bipartisan way. I asked them to
fight for a reduction of Australia’s
suicide rate over the next six years.
The last federal election gave us
JEFF
KENNETT
the most representative Senate of
the Australian population ever: six
parties, several independents. If
ever there was a body that could
prove its worth by leading such a
challenge, it is the Senate,
supported and resourced by the
government.
While this is an unusual role, I
think it would be overwhelmingly
supported by the community.
What is so sad about this toll is
that most suicides are preventable.
They occur when an individual is
facing what appears to be an
insurmountable crisis and
psychological pain: a relationship
breakdown, a financial challenge, a
health problem or acts of
discrimination.
We can’t afford to continue to
ignore the suicide rate. Why do we
have to wait until our immediate
family is affected before we act?
I do not know what I or you, the
readers, have to do to have this
issue addressed seriously and
nationally. But I do know the
numbers of people who are
grieving today because of the loss
of a loved one is in the hundreds of
thousands.
I
N Victoria in 1969, The Sun
newspaper declared war on Ten
34 when the road toll reached a
staggering 1034. A year later it had
grown to 1061. Led by this
newspaper’s campaign, plus
governments introducing a range
of legislation to improve safety,
plus car manufacturers developing
safer cars, we have reduced the
road toll dramatically.
Of course, suicide is different,
and legislation perhaps not
relevant. But leadership by
government and education is
essential.
We must be realistic. We will
never eliminate suicide; however,
we can substantially reduce the
numbers. But we won’t unless
there is a concerted effort.
Our Senate has the capacity to
stand together, and lead us to a
better place.
If we do not start tackling
suicide seriously and
comprehensively, at an increase of
5.4 per cent a year the dreadful
figure of 3027 will soon reach
4000. And that would be an
indictment on all of us.
Please join me in urging our
senators to lead this Great Social
Purpose.
Have a good day.
JEFF KENNETT IS CHAIRMAN OF
BEYONDBLUE AND A FORMER PREMIER
OF VICTORIA
Anyone needing assistance can
call the Beyondblue Help Line, 1300
22 46 36, or Lifeline, 13 11 14.