For more than a decade, national strategies, reviews and intergovernmental agreements have consistently recognised the urgent need to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and suicide prevention. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led reform is not a supplementary consideration in mental health and suicide prevention, it is foundational. The Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) declaration framework and implementation plan is the endorsed, co-designed roadmap to guide this reform. Yet, despite this it has yet to be fully funded or operationalised.

This position paper highlights a pattern of inadequate action and unfulfilled promises, calling for immediate funding and full implementation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led strategies and frameworks, backed by binding accountability mechanisms, to end the cycle of review without reform. The paper analyses where commitments have been made, how they have not been fulfilled and what must now occur. It provides eight recommendations.