That is the figure highlighted inSuicide Prevention Australia's latest report unpacking the "significant and lasting" impact of childhood trauma on suicide risk.

The report highlighteda study, published in the peer-reviewed JAMA Psychiatry, that "provides the first estimates of the causal contribution of child maltreatment to mental health in Australia".

Based on 34 studies and 54,646 participants, the analysis estimated childhood maltreatment accounted for a substantial proportion of mental health conditions, ranging from 21 per cent for depression to 41 per cent of suicide attempts.

More than one in four Australians reported experiencing sexual abuse before 18 years of age, according to Suicide Prevention Australia's analysis.

Just over 60 per cent of Australians aged over 16 reported experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience.

Children who are victims or perpetrators of bullying are more likely to experience suicidal ideation, while those who are victims of cyberbullying are almost four times as likely to consider or attempt suicide.

Children who experience sexual abuse are "significantly" more likely to die by suicide as adults.

The numbers are, Ms Murray says, both alarming and unsurprising.

"We must focus on children and young people in order to prevent suicide," she says.

"We know for a fact … that suicide prevention is more than just mental health, we know that we all have a role to play in the prevention of suicide.

"We also know that there's been lots of reviews and inquiries and productivity commissions into mental health and suicide prevention in a whole host of areas.

"We have the information we need to act. We can't just keep reviewing the situation."

The report describes the potential "extreme" distress arising from adverse childhood experiences — noting child abuse and neglect is a leading risk factor for suicide.

Their recommendations were made by SPA's Lived Experience Panel, who held 41 consultations with members, external stakeholders and people with lived experience.

They also published a separate background paper outlining extensive external research done on adverse childhood experiences and the outcomes of previous government enquiries.

Survivors already seeing cost of inaction

For survivors like Craig Hughes-Cashmore, those childhood experiences can lead to a spiral towards self-harm.

Extreme childhood bullying by both his classmates and by the adults around him, followed by his parents' separation, left him vulnerable to predators.

He was groomed and then sexually abused by multiple different adults, he tells the ABC.

"As soon as I finished school, I left Adelaide and fled to Melbourne … I felt like escaping was my only option," he says.

"Around that same time I had debilitating depression, just crying constantly, couldn't pull myself together.

"I had my first serious suicide attempt … when I was 20, again when I was 30, and then 35. I lived with daily suicidality for around 20 years.

After years of struggling with more suicide attempts, gambling and drug addiction, he says he only began to recover in his late 30s.

It was only after seeing a story about a victim-survivor of childhood sexual abuse on the front page of a newspaper that he understood what had happened to him.

"I identified enough with his story to suddenly think, 'Oh my god, I was abused,'" Mr Hughes-Cashmore says.

"I hadn't forgotten it, but I had lots of denial. I remember thinking on occasion, 'that shouldn't have happened' … I now know [that] a lot of survivors don't actually realise it's a crime."

In 2011, he went on to co-found the Survivors and Mates Support Network (SAMSN), the only support organisation in the country of its type for male survivors of child sexual abuse.

He was also consulted by Suicide Prevention Australia for its latest report.

He says Australia can "already see the costs" of inaction.

"If you look at the various national plans and strategies designed to address many of the issues where survivors are over-represented, like addiction and homelessness, there is barely a mention of child sexual abuse," he says.

"We triage people into all these different siloed services. If you've got mental health issues, you go there, if you've got addiction issues, you need to go over there.

"We're not good at seeing the whole person."

Those childhood experiences, he says, lead to a "snowball effect".

"Services are trying to help people deal with those problems, but we're not looking under the bonnet at other underlying issues."

A federal framework to avoid playing 'postcode bingo'

SPA's report sets out eight guiding principles and more than 30 recommendations, including:

• A coordinated and strategic approach to adverse childhood experiences and suicide prevention
• Perinatal, parenting and caregiver support with a focus on those with lived experiences
• Training education institutions to recognise risk factors
• Upskilling workplaces, providing resources to support services and funding further research

The impact of these traumatic experiences, according to Ms Murray, can sometimes not be seen for several years after.

"We're not considering the implications for what's happening for kids into their adult life," she says.

A scathing Productivity Commission review concludes that Australia's mental health system is failing and needs a rewrite, while warning that 500,000 Australians are unable to access the care that they need. 

She says a federal "Suicide Prevention Act" could stop access to support becoming a matter of "postcode bingo".

"We have a national suicide prevention strategy … that really does provide a blueprint," she says.

"But in order to enshrine that and ensure that it's not just about the current government's political whim … we need an act."

There were 3,307 deaths classified as being as a result of suicide in 2024, according to the latest data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

More than 900 of those deaths were people classed as being the most socio-economically disadvantaged.

The ABS listed suicide as the 16th leading cause of death nationwide in 2024.

"I think the best chance of lowering the suicide stats … is addressing child abuse," Mr Hughes-Cashmore says.

"In all its forms. We're not doing that adequately.

"And the system's response is failing people because of the way it's structured.