Tanveer Ahmed: Out own rust belt town rots under the flame trees

IF you want to see what a Trump supporting town in Australia might look like, look no further than Grafton in northern NSW.

Rural kids, particularly boys in their teens, are our most vulnerable group

IF you want to see what a Trump supporting town in Australia might look like, look no further than Grafton in northern NSW.

Situated on the banks of the Clarence River and known for its jacaranda tree festival, its former glory is a victim of literal bypass in the form of motorways favouring coastal cities such as Coffs Harbour and Lismore.

The town was the inspiration for Cold Chisel’s song Flame Trees, but there is a danger that more than bright flowers will disappear in metaphorical smoke.

Up until a few months ago, I was the lone private psychiatrist flying in and out of Sydney to treat the enormous backlog of needy patients.

Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatrist and author of Fragile Nation

Funding cuts made my visits untenable, but I feel guilty given its suicide crisis became a national story. There have been six youth suicides in the past 12 months with community workers fearing the act was becoming normalised. The new health minister, Greg Hunt, has highlighted the town’s woes in his push to prioritise mental health.

But in a sobering reminder of the power of media reports, colleagues from Grafton have told me the day after the minister’s interview with the ABC, three students from just one school threatened self harm in sympathy for the teenage victim, Emma Powell, profiled in the ABC’s 7.30 Report.

Rural kids, particularly boys in their teens, are our most vulnerable group. Their rates of suicide have trebled in the past few decades.

The methods, guns and hanging, are the most violent. We are one of the most urbanised countries and the bounty of our land — mining, wool, dairy — are capital intensive. Less labour means fewer jobs. You only have to visit South Grafton, which a few decades ago housed the families of wealthy graziers, but is now a hunting ground for ice dealers and petty criminals.

Nor are rural towns the idyllic, tight knit communities they may have once been. More women work and usually not on the land. Rural collectives have given way to corporations. When combined with the vast expanses of arid land and their associated isolation, social ties are loosened.

‘If you want to see what a Trump supporting town in Australia might look like, look no further than Grafton’

Wendy Pannach chairs the project Our Healthy Clarence, charged with implementing a plan to tackle the region’s mental health crisis. She describes it as a “perfect storm” of poor employment, limited housing and a lack of tertiary educational opportunities.

Those in distress struggle to access psychologists. Several of my patients from Grafton, who I continue to see through Skype, travel for hours to the coast just to finish their HSC through TAFE. Many shopfronts on the main street are emptying or closing.

Pannach hopes the jail ­replacing the country’s oldest regional correctional centre will spur jobs. However, the new 1700 bed facility will ­create a greater demand for services as families and ­workers move to the area.

Grafton is a classic case of globalisation’s losers in an Australian scenario. Inner city types who sneer at rural hicks risk a blowback as do free market purists who think the market will solve its plight.

The fact that teens, who crave belonging, are the most affected also hint at our weaker collective glue diluted by decades of identity politics. Those who use the term populism pejoratively forget its rise reflects the concerns of real people, often far away and out of sight.

Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatrist and author of Fragile Nation. Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis support line is 13 11 14.