THE QUIET EMERGENCY

Australia, we have a problem. It touches nearly everyone in some way, and government chooses not to call it what it is. People are dying. People are suffering. So why the silence?

Australia records its suicides and files the number as a mental health statistic. It is the visible part of something larger. Suicide, drug-induced death and alcohol-induced death together account for roughly one in thirty of all Australian deaths — and suicide and unintentional overdose are the first and second leading causes of death for working-age Australians.

Around that sit road deaths coroners cannot classify, a violence toll counted properly in only a handful of states, and a far larger population living with the same conditions without dying of them.

The memo assembles what is known: the size of it, the recorded circumstances, the role of isolation, financial pressure and lost meaning — and the substantial part of the problem this country has chosen not to measure. It sets out what a government whose first duty is to its citizens would actually do, while the present one stays close to silent.

It is time to call it what it is. A national emergency.

The Quiet Emergency — the memo →

If this is close to home for you, please talk to someone. Lifeline 13 11 14 · 13YARN 13 92 76 · or your doctor. Support is there, and it is worth using.