A Gillard Labor Government will invest in a comprehensive package of measures to tackle suicide and promote better mental health in our community.
More than 2000 Australians take their lives every year. This is a national tragedy – affecting individuals, families, and those communities in which someone has taken their own life.
A Gillard Labor Government’s comprehensive package to prevent the tragedy of suicide and promote better mental health will:
- Boost frontline services for people at greatest risk.
- Invest more in direct suicide prevention and crisis intervention.
- Provide more services and support to men.
- Promote good mental health and resilience in young people.
Australian Labor: Taking action to tackle suicide - extract
Above:
A Gillard Labor Government will invest $74.3 million in direct suicide prevention and crisis intervention services. Commencing in July next year, this investment includes:
- …
- $22.4 million to improve community-led suicide prevention services – targeted at groups and communities which are at high risk of suicide, including Indigenous people, men, and gay, lesbian and bisexual people.
ALP National Platform 2009 - Item 52, LGBTI health needs
Above:
52. Labor recognises that special effort is required to address the complex and diverse health needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people.
Below:
Sydney’s CityVoice newspaper first issue’s feature article Older LGBT people and the law.
CityVoice: Article about Labor's $400,000 ageing GLBT sensitivity training package for aged care workers in NSW.
CityVoice: Jo Harrison's paper The Removal of Same-Sex Discrimination:Implications for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersex (LGBTI) Aged Care inspired the GLBT training package funding. But what happened to intersex?
Editorial comment:
THIS is puzzling. In 2009 the Australian Labor Party National Conference passed a resolution about LGBTI Australians and our very specific health needs. Although The Greens nationally and in New South Wales have included LGBTI in that party’s policies since at least 2006, this was the first time a ruling party had recognized LGBTI.
By using the acronym LGBTI, Labor had recognized that intersex people actually exist. Not only that but the ALP noted that we have “complex and diverse health needs” that require a “special effort to address” them.
We could not agree more. The health and human rights of intersex people are severely neglected everywhere in the world. Only the laws of Colombia and South Africa even recognize that intersex people exist. South Africa includes intersex in its sex discrimination law, and Colombia has banned intersex genital mutilation (IGM) aka surgical sex assignment on intersex newborns since 1999.
Item 52 had given intersex the glimmerings of hope that we and our special needs might be recognized by an ALP federal government but now we are wondering if those hopes are about to be dashed.
Two recent events have given us cause to pause for thought. The most recent is yesterday’s announcement by the ALP of its Taking action to tackle suicide policy. The policy’s “community-led suicide prevention services” item is “targeted at groups and communities which are at high risk of suicide” and includes “gay, lesbian and bisexual people.” The item does not include intersex, transsexual and transgender people.
As we have pointed out before, the suicide rate for intersex people, based on empirical data only as intersex people are by default excluded from research into suicide and mental health, is said to be between 30% and 50%. It is believed that is similar to the suicide rate for people born with transsexualism. The figure for intersex people who were subjected to intersex genital mutilation (IGM) as infants may be much worse. We cannot forget how one woman posted on a private forum the suicide rate of her friends who had also been cut up as babies – it is 90%.
The other event was Labor’s announcement of a $400,000 sensitivity training package for NSW aged care workers looking after LGBT people. The report that had kicked off the effort to obtain these funds, Jo Harrison’s The Removal of Same-Sex Discrimination:Implications for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersex (LGBTI) Aged Care, had been scrupulous in its intersex inclusion. When the cents hit the fan, though, intersex had been mysteriously dropped, excluded, and so the package has ended up as being for GLBT people.
Aged care is the national responsibility of the Department for Health and Ageing, the same department that contributed to Taking action to tackle suicide.
We would love to know what is going on here and have asked for comments from the offices of Julia Gillard and Nicola Roxon.
Tony Abbott's Liberal/National Party Coalition mental health policy makes no mention of intersex or LGBTI at all.
It should be noted that Tony Abbott’s Liberal/National Party coalition is doing much worse when it comes to intersex. Its The Coalition’s Real Action Plan for Better Mental Health does not mention intersex at all, nor LGBTI, LGBT, LGB or even LG. A search on its website using those same acronyms and their expansions turns up nothing when it comes to policy.
Update:
A spokesperson from the Department for Health and Ageing has replied:
The Government’s policy document makes clear that this program will be targeted at groups and communities at high risk of suicide. While it is not possible to mention every single high risk group in the documents, transgender and intersex people will be eligible to apply for this program. As stated in the document, funding will be targeted to communities of highest need.
