An increase in overall suicides has been recorded in Victoria, Australia, despite a promise that legalised physician-assisted death would prevent fifty suicides a year, said Hon. Damien Tudehope in a speech before the Victorian parliament.

“[T]here were 62 more suicides in Victoria in 2022 than in 2017, when this claim was made,” said Tudehope. “The suicide rate among those aged over 65 years increased in Victoria between 2019 and 2022 by 42 percent — five times the increase in New South Wales.”

Data collected from Victoria reveals that there were 756 suicides in the state in 2022, an increase of nine percent from 2021. It is the highest number of suicides in Victoria since the coroner’s court began collecting suicide data in 2000. There was a 21% increase in suicide among people aged 45 to 54, an eight percent (8%) increase for males, and a 12% increase for females.

The Victorian state coroner, John Cain, said it was “troubling to see an increase in suicides emerge in the last few months of 2022.”