John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill 2015 and make it clear that, as I said to my parish priest, Father Joe, last Saturday week, I will not be supporting the bill.

In some ways, I take offence at the term 'dying with dignity'. When my father died at home he had cancer. I totally supported the drugs he was using. He was on morphine and painkillers. I don't care if it's medicinal marijuana, I support all sorts of drugs to make more comfortable those people who are terminally ill and suffering in pain. People say this bill is about dying with dignity. Does that imply that my father, or my mother in her old age, did not die with dignity? I do take offence to some of these slogans that are tagged on to some of these bills.

I believe that where there is life there is hope. I'm glad to see a media release today from the President of Right to Life Australia, Margaret Tighe. She says:

The bottom line in this debate is that the bill is designed to unleash into the Australian community legalised physician-assisted suicide. Would those same Senators who claim to be more concerned about so-called 'territory rights' be willing to give rights to the territories to legalise capital punishment?

She goes on to say:

Last official figures from the Netherlands—

where euthanasia has been in for a while—

in 2015 reveal that 431 euthanasia deaths occurred without the patient's consent!

This concerns me. What will change down the road? I'd like to talk about what the doctors have to say here and quote from today's TheAustralian newspaper:

St Vincent's Hospital emergency physician Stephen Parnis said that it was a "furphy" to say the bill was about territory rights.

The former Australian Medical Association Victoria president and federal vice-president said there was no way to comply with the safeguards. He said there should be more money spent on palliative care rather than a debate about assisted suicide.

“It is about state-sanctioned killing, even if it is killing of self; it is about the law and the values of our society, saying a number of people are better off dead and some lives are worth living and others are not …

…   …   …

The Australian Christian Lobby said polling it commissioned found support for euthanasia fell when respondents were asked to consider the question again after being told the AMA was opposed to it.

On 28 October 2017 the AMA President, Dr Michael Gannon, said:

The AMA's Position Statement is largely in line with the WMA—

World Medical Association—

policy in stating that 'doctors should not be involved in interventions that have as their primary intention the ending of a person's life'.

I agree with that. The doctors we know are about making people better, not ending their lives. I am concerned about what may change in time. It is a sad fact that one in two Australians, when they reach the age of 80, suffer some sort of memory loss—dementia, Alzheimer's or whatever. My mother suffered severely from it. I am concerned that those with enduring power of attorney, guardians, may want to hasten the death of their ancestor if there is money involved. This might be a selfish attitude I'm bringing to this point, but, if an elderly person living in Sydney owns their house, it could be worth millions of dollars. Sure, they're not going to get any better, but their life may be shortened because of that. As I said, where there is life there is hope. So I will not be supporting this legislation, on those grounds. I will not support it, on a religious basis. I will support the AMA and Right to Life.

But I do support all sorts of drugs to make life easier, more comfortable, for those with terminal illness. I wonder what happened a couple of hundred years ago when people had cancer and all sorts of terminal illnesses inflicting enormous pain. We didn't have those drugs to make life easier and more comfortable for them in their dying days. I'm certainly glad they are here these days. I saw what the morphine medication did for my father in his dying days, when we kept him at home and he died in his bed, which was amazing. When my mother said, 'I'm keeping him at home to die,' I was quite shocked. Usually people get very sick and they're taken off to hospital. Mum did a great job keeping dad at home in his dying days, along with Judy Grills, one of the nurses in town, who would come up regularly and look after my father's medication and see if he was going okay, along with my good friend Father Joe, who visited my father, Reg, on numerous occasions. My father died with dignity. He wasn't euthanised, and I'm glad that he wasn't and that he died from his illness, as comfortably as we could make it. I will not be supporting this legislation.