Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care press conference – 5 August 2024

GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE: Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Ged Kearney. I'm the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, and I'm delighted to be here at the Jika Jika Neighbourhood House Community Centre in Northcote to launch, officially launch, Loneliness Awareness Week. I have with me today Susan Rennie, who is the centre manager for Jika Jika Community Centre; Dr Michelle Lim, who does amazing work as chairperson and scientific chair of Ending Loneliness Together; and we have two wonderful people who are prepared to speak with us today about their lived experience. We have Peter Gallagher and Cooper Seeley, and we welcome them very warmly.
 
Well, it might surprise you to know that one in four Australians say that they feel lonely, and that is even worse in Victoria, where it's nearly 30 per cent. So, nearly one in three people in Victoria say that they have experienced a sense of loneliness. This is something that we really do need to talk about. We need to make sure that people feel connected. They feel connected at work, at school, in their community. It's incredibly important and it's something that I think is not really spoken about enough. People simply do not understand that feeling lonely has very serious impacts. People who feel lonely are those who suffer with chronic disease, who are divorced, who are feeling financial stress. And these are things that the Australian Government feel very strongly about correcting.
 
I'm very pleased today to be here to launch this week and awareness- raise awareness of this very important subject. I'm going to hand over now to you to make sure that you talk us through this.
 
MICHELLE LIM: Thank you, Ged, for your support. Loneliness is now seen as the next public health priority in Australia, and as Ged mentioned, actually has significant impacts on physical and mental health, but also on young people and people in financial hardship. So today, we're actually going to be hearing from some of these experiences about what we can do and how we can actually start the culture of connection from individuals all the way to our organisations, to our schools, and to government as well, and what we can actually do to play a part.
 
KEARNEY: Thank you, Dr Lim. Okay, we'll hear from you first, Cooper. Would you like to introduce yourself?
 
COOPER SEELEY: My name is Cooper Seeley. I'm the operations manager at Knox Leisureworks. Thank you for having me here today, Ged. I guess my personal experience with loneliness started at a young age from when I was pretty much 16 years old, which sort of the demographic that I'm here to advocate for. And it was through- I started full-time work very on in a leadership position and also was at uni full-time as well, and the only sort of social interaction you could get from my age was alcohol-centric and was surrounded by alcohol on a Saturday night, and unfortunately, that just wasn't something I was very much interested in, and that provided that lack of social interaction and impacted my own personal loneliness. And I think the biggest help that I got was through my local aquatic facility that I wasn't working for at the time and us having a healthy alternate to social connection to really, yeah, foster that connection, that social connection. And, yeah, that's really how I got into the career I'm into now, working at aquatic facilities and mentoring the young age group who tend to be lifeguards, 16 to 18-year-olds who are lifeguards. And really, it's how I've got into my work to become a mentor, to combat loneliness and to guide people out of that state of loneliness before it becomes persistent and continues, which can lead to greater mental health impacts down the end.
 
PETER GALLAGHER: My name is Peter Gallagher. I'm here representing people who've got chronic health conditions. I was born with heart disease and had five open heart surgeries from the age of 13 till about 42. And at 42, after that surgery, I stopped working. For me, the loneliness started from there because you're at that age group where your friends are all working pretty hard. Their careers are on an upward trajectory, and they don't have a lot of time to chat during the day. So when you're stuck at home during the day with very little to do, you find that there's a lot of silence and you really- you feel that silence. Before I was sick in 2014, I was very active in my community, and I can assure you, my phone would ring at least a dozen times a day. And I'd be lucky now if it rings a dozen times a week. You do kind of end up just with this silence. It's always around you.
 
I think for me, too, when friends interact – and for me, maybe this is part of a message to get out there – is people stop asking you what have you been up to because they know you're going to say not very much. And I sometimes wonder if we need to change the way we communicate with people who you think might be lonely or who are stuck at home, and maybe ask them what do they think about things and what are their opinion on things as opposed to that default of what have you been up to, because my answer nine times out of ten, except for tonight, is going to be nothing. Thank you.
 
KEARNEY:  Thanks. Thank you so much, Peter and Cooper, for sharing those stories. You can see how important connection is. You can see the importance of a good health system, a good education system to make sure that people can engage in active work, but also, how we communicate is incredibly important. Centres like Jika Jika, who provide a place for people to come, to mingle, to meet people are also incredibly important and the areas that we need to ensure survive and that we invest in.
 
So thanks very much, everyone. Would you like to ask some questions?
 
JOURNALIST: You mentioned that the Government is leading on initiatives in this space to address this issue. Could you explain some of that for us?
 
KEARNEY: Well, I think when you look at the people who are expressing feelings of loneliness, young people, people who have chronic disease, people who are under financial stress, we need to make sure that those pressures are alleviated in the best way that we can. So this government is committed to alleviating cost of living pressures. We have a myriad of initiatives and policies aimed at that: energy bill relief; fee-free TAFE, making sure that young people can afford to go to TAFE and get a qualification in a skill and get all the benefits that come with that; cheaper medicines; rental assistance. So trying to alleviate the cost of living pressures have been very important. Health care, making sure that people like Peter can access health care, but also make sure that they get the supports before and after in a health system that really understands these needs.
 
There's lots of things that we try to do. Just even on the local level, we try to support organisations like this one to make sure that they flourish and offer people places to go. It might be something that you might like to ask Dr Lim about, measures that are useful for combating loneliness.
 
LIM: I think that we really need to start about- we need to start thinking about how we can create a culture of connection. So really, from the individual, what we can do, how we recognise loneliness, what we can say to help, and also recognising the people that we care about. But also within our organisations, at our workplaces, at our schools – how do we teach young people, for example, to navigate those social challenges as they age, going from primary school to high school, high school to further education and future employment and vocational training? And also, I think around the policies that help govern the way we live, work and play – you know, do we actually encourage people or build kind of safe places that are- that people can come together to make those meaningful social connections? So safe, accessible, [indistinct] free, those are really important for people to actually have the space to come together to make and maintain those meaningful social connections.
 
JOURNALIST:  And can you take us through- I know migrants was one of the sort of cohorts that were most at risk. Can you take us through sort of maybe the top three or four groups of people that are most at risk, and why that is for those clusters?
 
LIM: Yeah, so the biggest finding that we did find was that people in financial hardship was about seven times more likely to be in what we call persistently lonely. So once they've become lonely, they stay lonely for at least eight weeks. And that's the biggest finding that we have. And people with chronic disease, about 1.5 times more likely to experience persistent loneliness compared with people with no chronic disease, and also people with mental ill health. So yeah, about 2.9 times more likely to experience persistent loneliness. So those are our top three, but people who identify as culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds as well, which suggests to us perhaps it’s about something that we are doing on the surface in our community as being more inclusive. So what is it that we can do to actually make those communities feel more belonged and included?
 
And I think the last group are- probably going to have to flag out people who are single, who are divorced or widowed. Those groups are also more predisposed to feeling lonely or they are more likely to stay lonely. So I think that's something around supporting those groups as well, but again, it means that we need to build a culture of connection where meaningful social connection can be easily facilitated and then maintained as well.
 
JOURNALIST: And is persistent loneliness. Is that an issue on its own, or can it lead to or exacerbate other issues as well?
 
LIM:   What we do know is that loneliness itself experienced at one time-point is not good for our health and wellbeing, but now we are actually seeing that if you actually become lonely- they would stay lonely. That actually becomes much more problematic in terms of health and wellbeing, so we know that it actually exacerbates poorer health [indistinct], exacerbates the likelihood of an earlier death. So we actually need to think about if we do feel lonely, let's not stay lonely so that we can actually manage our loneliness in a much more effective way.
 
JOURNALIST: And do you think- does the research show that Australians are becoming lonelier for longer? And do you think it's an issue that society takes seriously yet?
 
LIM: So, loneliness is now being repositioned on the global front as no longer a soft issue. This is now regarded as the next global public health priority, because the scientific evidence around the health impacts just can't be ignored anymore. So the World Health Organisation actually launched a commission for [indistinct] this year. What we do know is that loneliness was also an issue before the pandemic. This is something that we're just starting to understand, that it's not just living alone that's bad for our health, but feeling alone and not actually having that meaningful connection is just as bad for our health.
 
JOURNALIST: Was there anything else about the research that you wanted to mention that you felt was important?
 
LIM: Yeah, I think I covered everything as much as I could.
 
JOURNALIST:  Susan, pardon me. Do you want to tell us a little bit about, you know, the space here? And does that play an important role in helping build those connections, do you think?
 
RENNIE: Sure. I'm Susan, I'm the manager here at Jika Jika Community Centre, and we are quite explicitly looking to address loneliness through the programs that we run. We were very fortunate a couple of years ago to get a grant from the State Government under the Living Local Suburban Development Grant program for a program called De-fence Against Loneliness. And you'll see now that our courtyard is beautifully open and accessible. That's because we've taken down the fence, because we literally recognised that fences provide a barrier to access and that we can be much more welcoming and inviting, and that's one of the things that's happened. It's made it particularly much easier for older people with walking frames and people in wheelchairs to come in and to feel welcome, as though they can use the beautiful spaces.
 
We also have a new partnership with Melbourne Polytechnic, which is the local TAFE. We're working with a whole group of their students on how we activate the space for young women, because the research tells us that young women are very vulnerable to loneliness. And so we have a new program called Our House Is Your House, which is to really invite young women and younger people to come into our centre, to know that it is their space where they can meet and connect. There's not enough third places in our community – that is, places that are neither home nor work, but places where people can gather and meet others. And neighbourhood houses provide an exceptional third place in the community so that people can come here and connect with others, and we see that day in, day out.
 
JOURNALIST: And can you explain what sort of difference does it make when people come here and they forge those connections? What's the difference between when they first come in, quite lonely, versus when they leave after a few weeks?
 
RENNIE: We know that the programs we deliver are literally life saving for some people. We have community members who tell us that if they weren't here, they would spend the day in bed, that this gives them somewhere to come. So we have a weekly morning tea, we have community dinners. And some of the people who come here will come several times a week, and this will be the only social outlet that they might have in their lives. And sometimes we'll see people for a few weeks and that will help them get back on track. Sometimes people will come for months because this is their social place, and the number of times I've had people say to me, you know, this place has saved my life, it's been life changing – I think it's one of the reasons I think my job is the best job in the world, because it is all about connecting people and building friendship. And sometimes I see that happen before my eyes. People actually sit and they work out that the person they're talking to is someone with whom they feel an affinity, and they go on to form friendships and catch up outside of this place as well
 
JOURNALIST: And lastly, I just wondered if Cooper or Peter wanted to share, you know, what was it- a bit more about what was it that helped you sort of come out of that sense of feeling loneliness for a long period of time? Or is it something that you're still sort of experiencing?
 
SEELEY: I think everyone experiences it throughout their lifetime, and I feel like it is a- I'm not a medical professional, but it can sort of be- pop up here and there, and then can lead to something worse off if it's not managed. And for myself, I believe my own personal story of building those relationships within aquatic venues was really important and then, again, got me to the job where I am now, where I'm now mentoring and fostering that culture of connection between the- my age demographic because I know what it's like. And I felt a personal connection and responsibility to get others out of that situation. So I do experience it currently, but more from the viewpoint of me seeing others go through it and how I'm getting them out of it within my professional role, and how I can- yeah, sort of mentor these behaviours and get them- make them feel safe in a place and in a workplace that they feel like they belong in and can build those relationships themselves.
 
GALLAGHER: Thank you. For me it's an ongoing thing, I guess, because my situation is one around chronic health conditions. So it's just going to always be moving forward, I guess. Interestingly, the one thing that I've found that gets me socially connected is going to a gym and an aquatic centre, so we might be seeing a theme here. So, you know, I find that most people are creatures of habit. So if you keep going to the same aquatic centre or gym at the same time, you'll eventually make friends or acquaintances, and stop and have a coffee and that sort of thing. But yeah, it serves two purposes. I guess – it gets you social and it gets you a little bit healthier.
 
JOURNALIST: Thank you very much.