Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

I support this bill, which removes a longstanding injustice done to citizens of the Northern Territory and the ACT.

And that's all it does.

It is not a bill that legalises medically assisted suicide.

Or which creates a system of safeguards to define and regulate the circumstances in which people may seek medical assistance to end their lives.

It may be argued that there are two separate issues:

My answer to both questions is yes, and I wish to state briefly the reasons why I believe this bill should be passed.

I am one of the few in this place who took part in the 1997 Senate debate on the legislation the bill seeks to overturn.

My view has not changed.

In 1997, I said:

"I am probably the last one in this chamber to argue that the state has no right to interfere in the lives of its citizens.

To the contrary, I believe that the role of the state is to provide some form of sensible regulation which is vital for the fair and equitable running of a society.

Therefore I won't say that the state has no right to tell a person when they can or cannot die, because I am aware that people are already making those decisions.

What I believe the state must do is ensure that people have access to safety, proper medical advice, and as much decent care and support as can be given.

There are others who also oppose the bill before us today on the grounds that the state has no right to restrict the freedom of an individual to seek their own death and to seek medical assistance to do that.

It gives me a sense of ironic pleasure to quote John Stuart Mill, who argues that 'the only justification for restricting freedom through law is to prevent harm to others'.

It puzzles me somewhat that so many of the free marketeers in this Parliament, who would normally proclaim the sanctity of the individual and invoke the name of Mill, are in this instance opposing the individual's right to self-determination.

I also acknowledge that many senators support this [1997] bill on genuinely held religious grounds ... However, Australia is a secular nation, and as its Parliament we have an obligation to make secular laws, not religious ones."

One of the consequences of the 1997 Act was that it restricts equality before the law on the basis of where people live.

If you live in one of the states, your state's parliament is considered competent to legislate on euthanasia.

But if you live in the Northern Territory or the ACT, your territory's assembly is denied that competence.

The bill now before us removes that geographic inequality.

And in doing so, it would restore to the territories the right to allow their residents to seek medical assistance to end their lives if they are facing a protracted, painful death from incurable illness.

There is no justification for elected parliaments refusing to allow individuals to make that decision.

If you apply the John Stuart Mill test—that a restriction of freedom is only justified to prevent harm to others—who is harmed when the law denies individuals of sound mind the right to end their lives in the circumstances I have described?

The harm is done to the individuals whose autonomy has been denied.

They have lost control over their lives.

A law on assisted suicide should stipulate appropriate safeguards to ensure that personal autonomy is respected.

The Northern Territory law overturned in 1997 did have these safeguards.

That is also true of the assisted dying law recently enacted in Victoria.

It is important to be aware of this, because one of the most common cited reasons for opposing voluntary euthanasia is the fear that some people will not be choosing freely when they ask to be helped to die.

Perhaps, the opponents of assisted suicide say, because of subtle pressure from families who see them as a burden.

Or pressure from hospitals that are short of beds for patients who will recover.

These are familiar scenarios put forward in the course of any debate on euthanasia.

It is claimed that legalising voluntary euthanasia will start us on a slippery slope to a society of manipulation and abuse.

I do not accept the notion that we cannot devise laws to avoid such an outcome.

And I remind senators that the unregulated environment that applies in every Australian jurisdiction except Victoria is much more likely to result in the manipulation and abuse of the terminally ill.

We should not pretend that medically assisted suicides do not already take place, but without safeguards.

Opponents of medically assisted suicide like to evoke images of fascist regimes that used euthanasia to eliminate the unwanted.

That is not what the NT Act overturned in 1997 and the present Victorian Act allow.

Both those laws contain safeguards to prevent abuse — safeguards that do not exist in jurisdictions without such laws.

The NT law allowed medically assisted suicide only in strictly defined circumstances.

A person seeking assistance to die had to be an adult, and suffering from a terminal illness causing severe pain for which there was no treatment acceptable to the patient.

They had to have proper medical advice about the likely course of their illness, and about other options such as palliative care.

The doctor had to be satisfied that the patient was of sound mind and acting voluntarily, after due consideration and without restraint.

A second doctor with specialist qualifications in treating the patient's ailment had to confirm the first diagnosis.

A psychiatrist had to confirm that the patient was not suffering from treatable depression.

There had to be two cooling-off periods.

Seven days between the patient requesting medical assistance to die and the issuing of a certificate authorising that assistance.

And another 48 hours between the certificate being issued and being acted upon.

A request for assistance to end life could be rescinded by the patient at any time and in any form.

And, the law provided penalties for any person who attempted to influence a doctor to end the life of another person.

And for anyone who improperly induced another to sign or witness a form requesting medically assisted suicide.

Under the NT Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, no doctor or other health-care professional could be obliged to assist someone to die.

There was no attempt to force people to act against their moral beliefs.

A law with those stringent safeguards is not a law that de-values human life.

It is a law that respects the choices people make.

I support the principle that the will of the Senate should not be distorted.

If a senator is not able to attend because of ill-health, it is appropriate that pairing arrangements are made.

In this case, arrangements are made informally and not through the parties.

This is a conscience-vote bill.

Accordingly I have agreed to pair with Senator Sinodinos.

However, for the reasons I have set out I hope that this bill will be passed.

The Northern Territory and the ACT assemblies should be able to resolve this matter democratically, just as the parliaments of the states are able to do.

That is the question posed to us by this bill, and our answer should be yes.