Preventing suicide relies on ending poverty
One third of suicide deaths are people on JobSeeker or the Disability Pension
The Antipoverty Centre is calling on the government to stop hiding behind band-aid solutions to preventable suicide deaths. Recent data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare confirms what we have been saying for years: the welfare system is killing people.
**Warning: The following comments may be distressing for people who are affected by suicide, ideation or mental ill health. Crisis line contact information is available at the end of this page.**
Included below: key statistics on suicide deaths among welfare recipients and comments from Antipoverty Centre spokesperson Kristin O’Connell, crisis line contact information
The Antipoverty Centre regularly supports welfare recipients in distress who are hospitalised due to mental health crisis, who feel suicide is their best option, and who feel the government would prefer them dead. What they tell us is that they feel this way because of the welfare system. This is social murder.
What we saw in 2020, when JobSeeker was lifted to the Henderson poverty line, was that this trend reversed. Countless welfare recipients spoke of how their mental health rebounded and suicidality reduced when financial distress was reduced and they were free of abusive employment services providers.
Income insecurity was treated as a crisis during the COVID lockdowns and it must be treated as a crisis now, particularly when poverty and living cost pressures are being felt even more acutely. The community knows that more services will not meaningfully reduce suicide without direct, adequate, material support.1
Key statistics
According to Australian Insitute of Health and Welfare data published in May 2024:2
Suicide rates for people on unemployment payments (JobSeeker and Youth Allowance) reduced by 37.4% between 2019 and 2020.
In 2019 unemployment payment recipients accounted for approximately 20% of all suicide deaths across the same age range 15–66 years.
During 2019, the most recent pre-COVID year, suicide among DSP recipients was 3.6 times that of their comparison population. During the same year, DSP recipients accounted for 14.5% of all suicide deaths among Australians of the same age range (16–75 years).
In 2019 unemployment payment recipients accounted for approximately 20% of all suicide deaths across the same age range 15–66 years.
For all age groups between 16 and 65 years, rates of death by suicide are highest among those who received the Disability Support Pension.
In 2019 the suicide rate for those who received an unemployment payment was 4.5 times that of those who did not receive an unemployment payment in the preceding 12 months.
Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and Disability Support Pension recipient Kristin O’Connell
As a person who has felt that suicide was a better option than trying to survive on my Centrelink payment, and who regularly experiences ideation as a result of my financial circumstances, I know why people feel that the government would prefer welfare recipients to die.
The data shows that welfare recipients are dying by suicide at alarming rates.
For many of those who have relied on Centrelink payments long-term, they are less adequate than they have ever been. We fear the next set of suicide statistics will be even worse for welfare recipients.
Any talk about suicide prevention is meaningless without recognising that governments are pushing people to suicide everyday that they don’t lift all social security payments.
The government is not serious about suicide prevention and mental health if it refuses to increase Centrelink payments to at least the poverty line and abolish “mutual” obligations.
Take the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on lining property investors pockets, subsidising climate vandals and war machines and use it to ensure that no one who relies on income support is living in poverty.
Media contact: 0413 261 362 / media at antipovertycentre.org
Crisis support and counselling services
If you need support you can seek guidance, counselling or crisis help from the below organisations or talk to someone you trust.
Suicide Call Back Service – general: 1300 659 467
SANE Australia – general: 1800 187 263
13YARN – for First Nations people: 13 92 76
National Counselling and Referral Service – for disabled people: 1800 421 468
Headspace – for young people: 1800 650 890
QLife – fo LGBTQIA+ people: 1800 184 527
Full Stop – for people who have experienced sexual harassment and assault: 1800 385 578
Embrace Mental Health – multilingual service: embracementalhealth.org.au
MensLine – for men: 1300 789 978
Brother to Brother – for First Nations men: 1800 435 799
An August 2019 Essential poll found that only 30% of people believe it would be better to spend money on services rather than increasing unemployment payments. See: essentialvision.com.au/attitudes-towards-newstart