Three senior frontbenchers, including Ley, met community leaders and mental health experts at a roundtable in Canberra aimed at discussing the often hidden problem of mental illness in Indigenous communities.
Indigenous Australians have a suicide rate almost double that of non-Indigenous people. Many do not or cannot seek help from primary care providers and are therefore hospitalised or institutionalised at a much higher rate than non-Indigenous people.
“We all have to do better. We know that we haven’t done enough and we also realise that by including Indigenous mental health in this roundtable we will give it the attention it deserves,” Ley told reporters on Wednesday.
“Clearly not enough is being done otherwise the suicide rate and the incarceration rate would not be as unacceptably high as they are.”
Frank Quinlan from Mental Health Australia, who was part of the roundtable, said the Indigenous suicide rate is “not just a failure of government”.
“We have all failed. It is not just governments. It’s service providers; it’s communities,” he told Guardian Australia. “We all have to take our fair share of responsibility in that regard.”
No strategic response specific to Indigenous mental health exists currently at a federal level. The roundtable, which will continue on Thursday and Friday, aims to provide a framework for government so that it can implement policy priorities.
The assistant health minister, Fiona Nash, whose portfolio takes in Indigenous health, said governments of all levels must engage at-risk young men to reduce the suicide rate.
“We can absolutely do more,” she told Guardian Australia. “Mental health has to be a key health priority for the government.”
She said that creating a new Close the Gap target specifically for mental health is “certainly something that we [the federal government] are considering at the moment”.
Nash said she will await the recommendations of the roundtable before committing to any new policy direction or additional funding.
Psychologist Pat Dudgeon, the chair of the roundtable, warned the suicide rate would not go down unless Indigenous Australians were given some “agency over their lives”.
“We need to start empowering those in distress,” she said.
But she is “optimistic” that change is coming. “There are some great initiatives that have yet to hit the ground,” she said. “I’m optimistic. It won’t happen overnight … but I think we’ll see change … This roundtable is the first of many discussions to come.”
Indigenous Australians report higher rates of psychological distress and self-harm, often tied with other indicators of disadvantage like chronic illness and drug and alcohol abuse.