The Numbers Matter. What We Do Before Crisis Matters More.

A headline caught my attention recently suggesting Queensland could be heading towards its highest suicide toll in more than five years.

The number being talked about was 842.

It is a confronting number, but before we get caught up in a headline there is some important context. The latest Queensland Mental Health Commission data records 421 suspected deaths by suicide between 1 January and 30 June 2026. If that same number occurred again in the second half of the year, Queensland would finish the year at 842.

That isn't an official forecast and hopefully it is a number Queensland gets nowhere near.

The Commission itself asks people to be cautious about interpreting monthly figures because these are suspected suicicides based on information available before coronial investigations are complete, and numbers can change. But 421 people in six months still deserves our attention, particularly when that compares with 355 during the same period last year, 366 in 2024, 379 in 2023 and 373 in 2022.

And this is where I struggle with statistics like these.

I know we need the numbers because they help us understand what is happening, where the pressure might be building and where resources are needed, but I never want us to become numb to them either.

Because 421 isn't just a number.

There are 421 people who had families, mates, workmates, neighbours and communities around them, and there are now a lot more people living with the ripple effect of those deaths.

Of the 421 suspected suicide deaths recorded in the first six months of this year, 307 were males and 114 were females. Among men, particularly concerning numbers were recorded in the 25–34, 35–44 and 45–54 age groups. There were also 17 young people aged under 18, including 11 girls.

Those numbers concern me, but they also make me ask a bigger question.

What is happening before crisis?

I've spent a fair bit of time travelling through Queensland over recent months, particularly through Central West Queensland and the Gulf Savannah, and some of the conversations I've had keep coming back to me.

They happen on stations, in small towns, around health services, in pubs, beside utes and sometimes around a kitchen table. They aren't conversations that give us some simple explanation for suicide, because there isn't one, and I think we have to be really careful about pretending there is.

Suicide is complex. There can be many overlapping pressures, circumstances and vulnerabilities in somebody's life, which is also recognised in Queensland's suicide prevention strategy.

But when you spend enough time listening to people, you do start hearing some common things.

People talk about isolation, financial pressure, relationships, housing and uncertainty. They talk about workforce shortages and trying to access healthcare hundreds of kilometres from a major centre. They talk about waiting lists and continuity of care, and about finally building enough trust with someone to tell them what is really going on, only for that worker to leave and the whole process to start again.

And then there is another form of isolation that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with geography.

You can live in a remote part of Queensland and be surrounded by good people, and you can also live in the middle of Brisbane and feel completely alone.

You can have a family, a job, a footy club, plenty of mates and still feel like there isn't one person you can tell what is really happening inside your head.

That's why I think our conversations about suicide prevention have to extend well beyond simply telling people to seek professional help.

Professional help is incredibly important and we absolutely need accessible, adequately resourced mental health services, particularly outside our major cities, but the Queensland data also gives us something else worth thinking about.

In 2024, only 30 per cent of people who died by suspected suicide were reported as having recently been in contact with a mental health professional. The Commission also cautions that these preliminary records may not capture every service interaction, so that figure has limitations, but it still reinforces something I believe strongly.

Suicide prevention cannot belong only to the mental health system.

It has to belong to all of us.

It belongs in workplaces where somebody notices the bloke who normally gives everyone a bit of shit at smoko has gone quiet.

It belongs in sporting clubs where we know enough about one another to recognise when something isn't right.

It belongs around kitchen tables where difficult conversations don't have to be perfect.

It belongs in schools, sheds, pubs, boardrooms, community halls and in the front seat of a ute travelling down a dirt road.

And perhaps most importantly, it belongs long before somebody reaches the point where crisis services are their only option.

This is where my thinking around Capacity Before Crisis keeps coming back into the conversation.

I don't believe capacity means trying to turn people into some sort of super-resilient human who can absorb whatever life throws at them. I've lived enough life myself to know that's bullshit.

All of us have a limit.

Capacity is about what we have around us before things become unbearable. It is our relationships, our sense of belonging, our ability to recognise when our own tank is getting low, the people we trust enough to speak honestly with and the services we know how to reach when we need something more.

It is also about communities having the capacity to support people rather than placing the entire responsibility on the person who is struggling.

We say reach out a lot in mental health.

I say it myself.

But I have also become increasingly conscious that sometimes the person who most desperately needs to reach out is the person with the least capacity to do it.

They might be exhausted. They might be ashamed. They might genuinely believe everyone would be better off without their problems. They might not know what to say, who to say it to or even recognise how far down they have travelled.

So perhaps we need to talk just as much about reaching in.

Not barging into someone's life or trying to become their counsellor, but noticing, asking, listening and sometimes asking again.

Sitting beside somebody without feeling the need to fill every silence.

Making it safe for them to answer honestly when we ask how they're travelling.

And knowing what to do next if the answer worries us.

The rural and remote piece of this conversation matters too. National ABS data shows suicide rates increase with remoteness. Across 2020–2024, rates in remote and very remote Australia were consistently higher than regional areas and major cities, and the suicide rate among males in remote and very remote Australia was more than double the major-city male rate during 2021–2024.

Again, that doesn't mean living remotely causes suicide.

But access matters.

Distance matters.

Workforce matters.

Economic security matters.

Relationships matter.

Continuity of care matters.

And connection bloody well matters.

Queensland's own suicide prevention plan recognises there isn't one cause or one solution and calls for action that includes building resilience, intervening earlier in distress and vulnerability, responding effectively during crisis and strengthening support across the broader community.

I think that word earlier is incredibly important.

Because if all of our investment, training and attention kicks in when somebody has already reached crisis, we are coming into the conversation very late.

I don't want to dismiss the importance of crisis support for one second. We need it and we need it to work.

But I also want us asking what happened six months earlier, six weeks earlier or even six days earlier.

Could somebody have been less isolated?

Could financial or relationship support have been easier to find?

Could a workplace have recognised the signs?

Could someone have asked another question?

Could a community have had enough local capacity that a person knew exactly where to go without navigating a maze of phone numbers and waiting lists?

Could we have made asking for help feel normal rather than something people only do once everything else has fallen apart?

I don't know what Queensland's final number will be at the end of 2026.

I sincerely hope it is nowhere near 842.

But I also don't want us sitting around waiting until December to decide whether this year was bad enough for us to act.

There are already 421 reasons why this conversation matters.

We need strong mental health services, properly supported professionals and systems that people can actually access, but we also need stronger families, workplaces and communities around those systems.

We need people prepared to have conversations that might feel a bit uncomfortable.

We need to notice when somebody disappears a little bit.

We need to stop expecting the person whose capacity is completely depleted to carry the responsibility for finding their own way out.

And we need to build capacity long before crisis arrives.

Because hope matters, but hope on its own isn't a suicide prevention strategy.

If this article brings something up for you, please don't sit with it alone. Lifeline 13 11 14, Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467, Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 and 13YARN 13 92 76 are available for support. If you or somebody else is in immediate danger, call 000.