Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also say this bill, the Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022, is a bill about euthanasia, however you want to put it, from a territory that chose not to be a state. I also note that the territories are where you will most likely find those who are the most vulnerable to mistakes that become part of this process.

I have a very strong philosophical position; I have never hidden it. I don't think that anybody has the right to kill another person. Whether a person is aware of their rights or not, you do not have the right to kill another person, unless they're a clear and imminent threat to yourself, such as what we see in times of conflict with the Defence Force or with a police man or woman. But to say to a person, 'My objective now in life is to make sure that I kill you'—and that is what they are doing; they are killing—I think debases who we are.

I have just gone through the process of nursing, with my family, my father, who passed away last week. He was 98½ years old. He was bedridden. We looked after dad for four years. Prior to that, my mother had a stroke, and we looked after mum. It's my own personal view that that added to my life; it didn't detract from it. My father was an incredible asset. Obviously, I miss him dearly. At times, yes, it was hard work—really, really hard work. Obviously, with issues of personal hygiene, it's tough. It can be really tough. I want to acknowledge the work done especially by Rebecca, who was almost a saint looking after him, and my sister and brothers. It would have been so easy, though—because sometimes your loved ones are not so loving, and, as they are not so loving, they can be—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17 : 43 to 18 : 03

One of the issues we have with euthanasia is that sometimes patient's loved ones are not that lovely. This is an issue, especially in a place like the Northern Territory, where duress will come into play. What do I base that on? I base it on the experience of places such as the Netherlands. Here is a quote about one of the issues in the Netherlands—and I got this from the Guardian, so I'm not getting it from some crazy right-wing scribe. It says:

Van Baarsen's scruples have crystallised in the country's first euthanasia malpractice case, which prosecutors are now preparing—

Three further cases are now under investigation—

It involves a dementia sufferer who asked to be killed when the time was right, but when her doctor judged this to be the case, she resisted.

The patient had to be drugged and restrained by her family before she finally submitted to the doctor's fatal injection.

The doctor who administered the dose, who has not been identified, has defended her actions by saying that she was fulfilling her patient's request and that, since the patient was incompetent, her protests before her death were irrelevant.

We don't think of the Netherlands as a backwater. We don't think of it as an unsophisticated country. They were one of the first in this area. This shows quite clearly the progression of where these issues end up. The whole point of medicine is the preservation of life, not the destruction of life.

In other reports, you can see this extended into other areas. Euthanasia is a very cheap form of palliative care. It also inherently will give rise to people basically putting words into other people's mouths: 'Of course, when you're ready to go, just let us know. Life must be hard for you. It must be tough. You must feel like you're a burden.' I'm very blessed and very lucky to have a great family, but I can imagine in other areas, to be quite frank—my father's life would have been one that people would have put pressure on. They'd say: 'You're in the house all day. People have to stay in the house with you. It locks up finances. Things can't go anywhere.' We have to focus, and we have to also remember that the views of people at a certain point in their life—it has been noted by the previous speaker—may not be their views at a later time in their life. The view of the person is contingent on the mercurial nature of human conscience, and that can change over time in how they perceive life. I think it's really important that our endeavours in a medical area do not have as an option that a facility will assist you to kill yourself, because one of the biggest problems with that is that someone has to assist you. That inherently goes down a path where we become arbitrary and, I think, hard. We lose a section of our humanity.

Given the issues with palliative care now, there are so many things that we can do to aid a person at the final stages of their life, which will happen to all of us, of course. But this is where our endeavours must be focused, not on a shortcut of, 'We'll kill you.'

Also, in part of the European experience with psychiatric disorders, euthanasia is now being deemed as a mechanism for removing the hardship of life. Schizophrenia can be a reason for euthanasia. There was one case where it was obesity. These are not circumstances that bring unbearable pain, but they can be determined and be utilised as a mechanism for a person to bring about the termination of a person's life:

Between October 2007 and December 2011, 100 people went to a clinic in Belgium's Dutch-speaking region with depression, or schizophrenia, or, in several cases, Asperger's syndrome, seeking euthanasia. The doctors, satisfied that 48 of the patients were in earnest, and that their conditions were "untreatable" and "unbearable," …

How do you end up at that point? I hope that that shocks people and they say, 'That's an absurdity; that's wrong.' They started from the extreme cases of terminal cancer. But that's where it starts. All these things start in a spot; where they end up is somewhere entirely different. To stop that boulder rolling down a hill, you don't give it a push at the start. When you go down the path of euthanasia, you've given the boulder a little push, and where it ends up is entirely different to where your aspirations are later on.

Why this is more pertinent to the Northern Territory, of course, is that we have so many problems there that we've got to manage. We have child molestation, a problem that has to be fixed, as well as alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment and extreme violence in communities. What do they all point to? Why do these social maladies exist? They exist because there is a febrile insecurity and vulnerability there. Why would you insert into that the option of euthanasia? Anybody should be able to diagnose that you're opening yourself up to something at some stage where, inevitably, someone who is vulnerable will be killed. If you really look into that person's heart at that moment and say—I've been there before and said to a person, my brother, as they had the PAP mask on and wanted to take it off: 'Tim, do you want to die?' He looked at me and went, 'No, I don't.' I said, 'That's the answer.' The answer is no, I don't. If that meant another half hour of life, another hour of life, another day of life—but you don't want the pressure on that person. It's got to be not an alternative. You don't want that pressure, because it will happen. People will be killed who don't want to die, but under the pressure of people surrounding them they will convince themselves that they are an inconvenience. By a wink, by a nod, by inference, by innuendo, by a whole range of mechanisms, they will be convinced that they're an inconvenience, and so to help other people out they will give up the most precious thing that they have, their life.

In any way, shape or form, no matter what form it comes into this parliament, I will fight against euthanasia as an alternative, not so much for it starts but for where I know it will finish. If anybody can show me an example in Europe where it is not the case then let's hear it, because I certainly show you cases where it is. They all started from a righteous position, and now the discussions are something entirely different. If someone says, 'We are wiser in Australia and we'll put the covariates in place so this will not happen,' no you won't. Australia is just like everywhere else. It will follow the same track and end in the same position that it ends in everywhere else. Human nature is ubiquitous. This is something we have to be careful of.

I know how parliament works. This is the issue du jour and has been for a few years. It will get up—I'm not a fool—but it's wrong. Just because things get through this parliament, it doesn't mean they are right. This will get up, but it's wrong. It shouldn't. The fruit of the labour and the intention is that people will die. Inevitably, people will die who don't want to die, and that will be sanctioned death by the state against the wishes of the person. The next debate will be about what extensions are to happen to the euthanasia debate—how it can be broadened—when there are so many other things. Shouldn't this parliament be paramount in wanting to maintain life, not destroy life? I have a faith. It's not premised on faith—everyone says that—but it's not. It's premised on logic. When you close your eyes and think, 'Do I want to die?' The answer generally is no.

A government member interjecting—

Don't interrupt. Inevitably it's about euthanasia being the paramount issue within this. You've got to make a statement. It is certainly a consequence of this. As a consequence of this, there needs to be brought into the light what outcomes there are. I'm putting on the record what I truly believe is one of the paramount outcomes. A euthanasia bill will go through the territory parliament, and if the territory wanted to be honest on another issue—they did have a vote as to whether they wanted to be a state, and they voted against it, so they're a territory. If you want to be a state, make yourself a state. If you're going to be a territory, acknowledge that territories, by their very nature, have the oversight of the Commonwealth.

In closing, I do not support this, because ultimately it's convenient for more palliative care, which has the capacity to go into a very evil corner. It will inevitably drift from the certain to the grey, because that always happens. Its clear path, as clearly prescribed in other countries, is that where this starts is not where it finishes. I've identified clear cases of where this has gone into a very sullied and evil place where people are being killed against their wishes. It's not something made up. It's there. One of the main reasons I'm in this parliament is to do my very best to preserve life and to make people's lives better, not to be a party to anything that kills people.

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