Four years after a damning coronial inquest, progress on dealing with Kimberley youth suicide grinds to a halt
/ By Ted O'ConnorProgress on a new strategy to tackle youth suicide in Western Australia's Kimberley region has "ground to a halt", as frustrated Indigenous groups accuse the state government of disappearing from the table.
Key points:
- Indigenous leaders vent frustration over the long wait for government feedback on suicide plan
- The Kimberley has some of the highest suicide rates in the country, especially impacting young people
- A government spokesperson confirmed feedback has not yet been provided
In 2020, WA ministers talked up their desire to work closely with Indigenous people when they announced a wide-ranging plan to tackle some of the highest suicide rates in the country in a vast outback area where about half the population are Aboriginal.
The response came after two damning probes, a coronial investigation into the suicides of young people and a parliamentary inquiry dubbed the "Message Stick", with the latter finding "little evidence government was meaningfully consulting or partnering with Aboriginal communities".
But more than three years later, Indigenous leaders and agencies in the Kimberley are asking why the government has gone silent on crucial work to ensure more young people live free of poverty and hardship, as youth crime and truancy in some places persists at crisis point.
In January this year, a group representing Indigenous bodies in the Kimberley submitted a draft "partnership agreement" to the state government outlining how Aboriginal groups would work with departments so programs were designed and funded to achieve the best results.
The Aboriginal Regional Governance Group's co-chair Des Hill said eight months later the only feedback he had received was a vague view the state government "wasn't happy" with the draft.
"But we don't know what they're not happy with. They won't tell us what they're not happy with," the Miriwoong man said.
"If they've got an issue with policies, if they've got an issue with ongoing funding, if they've got an issue with God knows what in that document, if they let us know we can try to fix it.
"No-one is telling us why we've ground to a halt."
With nothing to talk about, meetings stop
The Kununurra-based Indigenous advocate said the situation meant that a committee made up of leaders of Aboriginal organisations in the Kimberley, state bureaucrats and agencies had stopped meeting six months ago.
"We've actually stopped having meetings with the state government until we've got something to discuss," he said.
"That's the whole idea of having a co-design is it's to-ing and fro-ing and to-ing and fro-ing until you get it right.
"But the froing stopped in January and we've got to stop the toing because we're just wasting our time."
He said the situation was all the more disappointing given the state government had approached Indigenous organisations first, asking them to design a potential partnership.
The Chair of Binarri-binyja yarrawoo (BBY) said he had worked productively with some government representatives, in particular from the Mental Health Commission, last year.
"But unfortunately it gets to a certain level of government, I think that's Premier and Cabinet, and it's ground to a halt," he said.
The Aboriginal Regional Governance Group has also requested a meeting with Premier Roger Cook to speed up progress with the draft agreement.
The ABC contacted the premier's office for comment.
A spokesperson for the Mental Health Minister's office responded to the ABC's questions confirming feedback had not been provided.
"Discussions about the appropriate government authorising environment remains an action that is still to be confirmed, and we continue to work through the progression of the draft Partnership Agreement," the spokesperson said.
Research finds Kimberley remains youth suicide 'hotspot'
The issue was again highlighted in recent weeks by a Telethon Kids Institute report that named the region and other parts of northern WA as youth suicide hotspots.
The research found that communities with poor access to mental health services were eight times more likely to be hotspots.
Suicide prevention researcher Nicole Hill said illicit substance abuse was also 20-per-cent higher in hotspot communities.
"Taking into account where suicides are occurring and looking at the profile of that community and whether it has good access to mental health services is really important to ongoing suicide prevention," Dr Hill said.
"In the aftermath of suicides often communities are recommending that people seek help. But if that help is not available then we could potentially be prolonging or exacerbating suicidal distress."