MANDURAH MLA David Templeman has given a speech in Parliament supporting calls for an urgent inquiry into the suicides of fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workers.
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Mr Templeman said he supported the motion by State Opposition Leader Mark McGowan and said the inquiry should investigate the initiatives that industry and government can take to reduce the prevalence of suicides.
“The Peel region has the second highest regional population in Western Australia and many of the workers who reside here are FIFO workers with young families isolated in new suburbs with little infrastructure and no close extended family around to help,” Mr Templeman said.
“For many of these families the onus ultimately falls on the person who stays at home to be the primary caregiver to the children for long periods of time.
“It can be extremely frustrating when there is no emotional or physical support for significant periods of time for both the stay at home parent and the parent working away.
“These workers are making an important contribution to the building of our state and our nation and the inquiry will form an important opportunity to establish models of rostering which can help to reduce the number of suicides.”
Mr Templeman said he was proud of the Mandurah community for establishing a number of support groups and networks by which people can connect and maintain connections with other FIFO families.
“Groups like Teen MOPS, Mums of Mandurah and many local playgroups exist to provide support to the caregiver who is staying at home and looking after young children and give them the time to share their day to day activities with other parents in the same situation,” Mr Templeman said.
Mr Templeman said he was hopeful the Government would support Labor’s recommendation for the inquiry.
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