Australian Politics
The male suicide problem
Toxic feminism at work
Australia’s suicide prevention policies are failing. We are falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to suicide prevention. From 2000-19 global suicide declined by 11 per cent. In Australia, rates increased by 31 per cent.
The reason? For many decades our health authorities have blatantly refused to target the group most at risk – men. Seven of the nine people who end their lives each day in Australia are male.
In 2019, the female suicide rate in Australia (5.6 per 100,000) while tragic, was similar to the rest of the world (5.4 per 100,000). However, male suicide rates in Australia (17.0 per 100,000) are now much higher than elsewhere (12.6 per 100,000).
The discrepancy is stark, and yet funding initiatives and bodies appear to fall short when it comes to targeting men who are most at risk.
Just look at the $1.8 billion of funding allocated in the 2022 National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement. This includes:
$735 million for adult mental health services that generally reach twice as many women as men.
$300 million for youth mental health services, which generally reach twice as many young women as young men.
$465 million for aftercare support for people who attempt suicide, a model with a track record of helping more women than men.
$35 million for suicide postvention support providing suicide bereavement services that predominantly support women.
It is hardly surprising that men feel as if they are being left behind. And when these programs do manage to support vulnerable men as a priority, the tend to invoke the toxic masculinity model in which men are told it is their fault the system is failing them because they are too stoic to reach out for help with mental health issues.
Yet here too there is big news.
There’s now statistical data to show that mental health problems are no longer considered the key risk factor for one of our major groups of vulnerable men. For the first time, this year the Australian Bureau of Statistics published statistics based on coroners’ reports showing relationship/family breakdown is the major suicide trigger for family men – men in their peak child-raising years from 25-44.
Here’s what the ABS said:
‘The top risk factor for males aged 25-44 years was problems in spousal relationships circumstances, present in over one-third of suicides. Problems in spousal relationships overtook mood disorders as the top risk factor in this age group for the first time and can include separation and divorce as well as arguments and domestic violence situations.’
We’re talking family law issues, men under fire in our increasingly hostile family law system, facing the risk of losing their children, home, and assets. Men who are facing the stress of monstrous legal costs. Plus we have the sad reality that ‘domestic violence situations’ often include false allegations.
Last month there were 2,500 empty shoes on the lawn in front of Parliament House representing the men who have lost their lives by their own hand this year. This powerful memorial event was sponsored by the Zero Suicide Community Awareness program which aims to educate Australia about what needs to be done to reduce these shocking suicide numbers.
Here’s a brief video giving an overview of the memorial – produced by Dads4Kids, one of the many men’s groups who came together to make this all happen.
Listen to Mary O’Brien, who runs a rural suicide organisation called Are you Bogged, Mate? O’Brien started speaking out about the high suicide rate in rural areas many years ago, pointing out how many of these blokes were driven to take their lives by family law battles. She’s touring the country speaking about rural suicide – rural men are twice as likely to take their lives as metropolitan men. Five times more likely than metropolitan women.
We lose a farmer every ten days in this country – and this crisis has led O’Brien to give up her work as an agricultural scientist to devote herself to calling out the health authorities’ failure to tackle male suicide properly. ‘Everything I read was bullsh*t,’ she says, spelling out the misguided approach being taken to male suicide.
She’s also concerned about the way statistical bodies report male suicide. For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics graph below clearly shows the glaring difference in male and female suicide rates.
The ABS highlighted this telling graph in their reports on suicide trends until 2020 when it suddenly disappeared, to be replaced with two separate graphs – one for men and the other for women. The net effect of this change in the display of data obscures the reality that suicide is overwhelmingly a male problem.
What’s left in a prominent position is this graph, where the gender split is no longer obvious.
The gender disparity has not gone away, it is obscured by the choice of display. Here, the suicide rate for 35-39-year-old males and females appears comparable when the reality is suicide rates for males are more than 3 times higher.
Instead, the suicide figures for each age group are shown as a proportion of total suicides in each gender, rather than for all suicides. Therefore, in the 35-39 age bracket, the figure of 9.2 per cent for women represents 73 individuals, while the figure of 9.2 per cent for men represents 227 individuals. The graph makes these figures look the same.
The Zero Suicide event attracted various Opposition and One Nation MPs and Senators, speaking out about the male suicide crisis. As usual mainstream media did a brilliant job ignoring the event – despite the organiser Paul Withall having sent over 1,000 emails to media groups seeking publicity.
Male suicides are 35 times as numerous as deaths from domestic violence.
How come we are willing to spend millions of dollars each year to try to protect women from domestic violence while working so hard to ignore the tragedy of all those dead men?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/the-tragic-story-of-2500-empty-shoes/
*******************************************************Mindfulness therapy does little for high-schoolers' mental health, research finds
When a group of teenagers was given eight weeks of therapy and mindfulness training, there was no improvement in their overall mental health, a study has shown.
The University of Sydney paper tracked more than 1,000 year 8 and year 9 high-schoolers, half of whom were given dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), while the other half were not.
DBT is a type of psychological intervention based on various emotional regulation skills centred primarily around mindfulness.
The DBT therapy group engaged in mindfulness and other emotional regulation exercises.
Lead author Lauren Harvey said the only improvements were seen among those students who continued their therapy exercises at home.
The clinical psychologist said these results suggested that participants needed a certain willingness for the therapy to be effective.
"What some of these findings are telling is we need that level of engagement and buy-in," Dr Harvey said.
"The research is starting to show that it's not about a particular strategy, it's actually about how we use certain strategies and in which context we apply them."
She said similar studies in the UK had also cast doubt over the efficacy of mindfulness meditation in classrooms.
Dr Harvey said, therefore, she did not advise these practices be imposed in classrooms or workplaces, since the evidence suggested it was not generally effective.
While companies such as Amazon have introduced mindfulness booths for staff, Dr Harvey said such enthusiasm for mindfulness activities may be misleading.
She said sometimes problems were "systemic", rather than internal. "With the rise of mindfulness in our society it's been branded as a panacea to fix all of our issues, but realistically it's probably not," Dr Harvey said.
Sarah Swannell, a director of Willow Oak Psychology, says DBT is generally not appropriate for children who show no real interest in it. As a DBT clinician, she says the therapy is traditionally used by people actively seeking help for depression, emotional dysregulation, and suicidality.
Dr Swannell also said time frames for the therapy also tended to be much longer than eight weeks, with training often continuing for 12 months.
She said DBT could be effective in a classroom setting, provided it was offered as an opt-in activity.
"The buy-in needs to be not just by the kids who are receiving the intervention, but the entire school," Dr Swannell said. "All of the teachers, the staff, and the administration need to be on board with it so that there's a really positive culture around learning skills."
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Wind turbines in Queensland and NSW are killing rare Aussie wildlife - and wind farm operators are being trained to 'kill' koalas 'humanely'
It's the massacre of Australian wildlife no-one wants to talk about. But the reality is for every wind turbine that's built in Australia, there's a grim body count that follows.
It's almost a contradiction in terms; wind is at the centre of Australia's optimistic goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
But the unique wildlife Australians hope to protect by reducing emission and thereby slowing global warming, including wedge-tail eagles, falcons, magpies and other birds and animals, are falling victim to wind farms throughout the nation every day.
Meanwhile, other wind farms are being built in prime koala habitat, meaning some will starve and die.
The detail comes from the reports of billionaire Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest's Squadron Energy, the biggest provider of renewables in Australia, in which wild farm operators must provide the 'carcass reports' of dead wildlife.
Squadron has a portfolio of 11 wind farms throughout Victoria and NSW, as well as the Clarke Creek site in Queensland, which is up to the second stage of development.
And while the company has repeatedly expressed a commitment to protecting wildlife, compulsory carcass reports posted by each wind farm during the early stages of development indicate that is not always possible.
A biodiversity management plan for Clarke Creek notes the project may result in the destruction of up to 1,513 hectares of koala habitat.
In addition to habitat loss, there have already been mass bird and bat casualties on these wind farms due to collisions with turbine blades and throughout vegetation clearing processes, and that number is only expected to rise further.
Bango Wind Farm in south-west NSW detailed a carcass count from September 2022 to August 2023, during which six wedge-tailed eagles, one peregrine falcon, six magpies and 10 dead bats were found.
And at Crudine Ridge Wind Farm, in northwest NSW, 19 dead bats were found, along with five wedge-tailed eagles, two falcons and five kestrels.
Clarke Creek also had a 'fauna euthanasia' clause, which vividly detailed how 'blunt force trauma' should be administered to injured koalas which could not be saved.
Squadron Energy said in a statement they have 'a zero-harm policy for native animals and holds itself to the highest environmental standards.
'No koala has been injured or killed during construction of the Clarke Creek Wind Farm and clearing for stage one is 60 per cent complete.
'We have experienced wildlife officers on site who conduct assessments 24 hours before work starts and monitor and supervise work as it occurs, to prevent injury to fauna. They are qualified to respond to fauna encounters and relocate animals if required.
'In the unlikely event of injury—any animals encountered must be assessed for injury to determine whether the animal requires further treatment and care by a vet or wildlife carer.'
The biodiversity management report details how 'euthanasia' should be carried out using 'blunt force trauma' when a dying animal can't be saved.
'This is a hard, sharp blow to the base of the back of the skull with a blunt metal or heavy wooden bar,' the report stated.
The report was written prior to March 2022, when Mr Forrest's Squadron Energy acquired the project, and was signed off by the then Coalition government, under Scott Morrison.
Michelle Landry, the Liberal Party MP for Central Queensland electorate Capricornia, said she was 'horrified' by the Clarke Creek Wind Farm proposal.
'203 animal species have been identified in the region where these wind farms are being constructed. It is prime habitat for Koalas, Greater Gliders and Squatter Pigeon.'
She described the fauna euthanasia clause as 'absolutely sickening'.
Ms Landry said local grazier Glen Kelly warned 'there is going to be dozens upon dozens of animals killed and maimed in this process'.
'There is areas in the region where there is cleared land. Why is this not used instead of knocking down the habitat of our native animals?,' he argued.
Squadron has committed to providing a third of the clean energy the Labor government needs to hit the targeted 82 per cent renewables on the grid by 2030.
Australia has committed to growing its renewable energy sector, with more than 300 wind farm projects currently operating, under construction or proposed throughout the nation, according to the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner.
Meanwhile the Coalition advocates an 'all of the above' approach which would combine the use of small doses of nuclear alongside renewable energy, to keep prices down.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is expected to take a nuclear energy policy to the next election.
Just last week, Energy Minister Chris Bowen slammed the nuclear proposal as 'a fantasy wrapped in a delusion, accompanied by a pipe dream'.
He said nuclear energy 'would not move the dial at all' on transitioning to renewables and described the support from the Coalition as 'an attempt at a distraction'.
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Brisbane Racing Club tees off on green groups over affordable housing proposal
A Brisbane race club has teed off on green groups pushing for tracks to be sold off for affordable housing, saying they can’t afford to give an inch to anti-racing ideologies.
In a letter to members, Brisbane Racing Club chief executive Tony Partridge slammed Greens councillor and Brisbane Lord Mayor candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan after he proposed to turn Eagle Farm into 4000 apartments and green space as part of his election pitch.
Partridge also returned serve to sections of the media who questioned why Brisbane needed two racetracks, saying “they want to shut our sport down”.
“Let’s be frank about these comments – the Greens despise horse racing,” Partridge wrote.
“They are aided by some media outlets pitching for business from readers who share the Greens’ views.
“The Greens and these media outlets like to tell other people what to do with their property and with their leisure time. It’s their standard approach to public policy.”
Partridge said he was compelled to speak out to assure racing stakeholders and BRC members of their stance on the matter.
“The Greens and their media supporters who want to shut down Eagle Farm and Doomben don’t understand racing,” he said.
“They can’t comprehend why Brisbane has two racetracks next to each other. “The reason is simple – they create a precinct that enables the sport’s hundreds of daily participants to move between the courses easily and safely.
“Employees can live close to their place of employment. Resources can be shared between the courses.
“The two courses can withstand the workload that one course can’t handle — Brisbane has two metropolitan courses while Sydney and Melbourne each have four.”
Partridge said it was important for the racing industry to stand up to Green groups and be proud of their history in order to hold their ground.
“It’s not the job of sporting organisations to give up their traditions because others don’t approve of them,” he said.
“We are proud of the contribution, history and the future of Eagle Farm and Doomben.
“The BRC is not-for-profit and conducts 80 race meetings a year that generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the State Government.
“BRC and racing enjoy the support of both major political parties, continuing Government support for over 165 years.”
Under their plans, the Greens say they would house 10,000 people in publicly-owned rent-capped homes at Eagle Farm.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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