The Guardian reports that support workers will be flown to remote Aboriginal communities in response to suicides in an attempt to curb the “ongoing tragedy” of growing Indigenous suicide rates.
The $1m critical response project is being trialled in Western Australia, which has the highest rates of Aboriginal suicide in the country, with a view to being rolled out nationally, The Guardian reports.
“One in three deaths across the country among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 to 35 is a suicide and the rates of suicide for First Australians is twice that of other Australians,” Scullion said at the launch of the project in Perth on Monday. “This is an ongoing tragedy.”
The suicide rate among Indigenous people in Australia is twice that for non-Indigenous people. In some areas, such as the Kimberley region in northern WA and far-north Queensland, the suicide rate is six or seven times that.