Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Ensuring Northern Territory Rights Bill 2021. I would have preferred to have spoken second, because I understand that Senator McMahon is planning on moving amendments to her bill that would significantly amend it, and I would welcome those amendments. So my comments would be basically have been made following the amendments to her bill.

But I will say that to get to this point it has been an extraordinary process. This bill was tabled by Senator McMahon some months ago. She attempted to debate it last week. Her own government refused to allow it to be listed and instead listed a One Nation bill in its place, and we've had some difficulty getting to this point today. We thought it was important that Senator McMahon be allowed to debate her bill. She is leaving the Senate at the next election, as I understand it, and the debate on this bill this morning was to provide her with the only opportunity she had to have that debate heard. Labor is happy to facilitate that; in fact, we have given up our spot on our own bill this morning to allow Senator McMahon's bill to be debated.

As a territory senator, I am very keen to see passage of legislation in both chambers of this parliament that would allow citizens of the territories to enjoy the same democratic rights as any other Australian. At the moment, in my neck of the woods, a person who lives in Queanbeyan has greater democratic rights than a person who resides in the ACT. That is fundamentally unfair. We don't see it in other areas of law, only in this area. Whilst there may be mixed views about voluntary assisted dying and the laws that surround it, once Senator McMahon has this bill amended, it would allow the overturning of a law made almost 25 years ago that extinguished the rights of Territorians to debate end-of-life matters in their parliaments.

The legislation has remained on the statute book because the federal parliament has been unable to resolve it. As a territorian, as a senator and as someone who has served in the ACT Legislative Assembly, I believe that is fundamentally unfair. There have been bills in this place similar to what Senator McMahon's amended bill will progress, and they failed very narrowly by two votes the last time this was tested. I believe, if it gets to the point where there is a vote on this bill and that is a matter of a conscience vote for people in the Labor Party, that it is a vote that the parliament should support.

Times have moved on. In 1997, even though I didn't agree with it at the time, legislation passed this parliament that put in place this discriminatory regime. However, since then, there has been significant international and national progress on laws around euthanasia or voluntary assisted dying. In fact, in every single state or territory there has been progress on this, either with the passage of legislation or legislation waiting to be voted upon, as is the case in New South Wales.

There has been enormous change regarding voluntary assisted dying. We know that, if you ask, people believe they should have greater rights when it comes to end-of-life decision-making and control over their own care. Yes, there have to be protections alongside this, but we leave those matters to state and territory parliaments to pursue, which is the right place for those matters to be debated. They represent and engage with their community as they're shaping those laws. However, the federal parliament could overturn the ban on territory parliaments, allowing them to debate this. The crazy situation we are now in is that the rights of hundreds of thousands of Australians are different because of where they live; that's the only reason. Because they decide to live, work and bring up their families in a territory, they do not have the ability to debate end-of-life decision-making or voluntary assisted dying laws through their local parliament. It is crazy. We wouldn't stand for it in any other area of lawmaking, in terms of the role of the federal parliament. It is something that has existed for 24 years and it is something that should be overturned. That is all this bill—given the amendments that I understand Senator McMahon will move—will allow to occur. It won't put in place any laws around voluntary assisted dying. It won't impose any restrictions. It won't change anything for people in the territories immediately, but it will allow for legislation to be brought forward in those parliaments and for people to have the debate.

This is an area in which I have advocated for my entire time in politics—that we should enjoy the same democratic rights as anyone else, and just because we live in the ACT shouldn't affect that—but unfortunately it's not something that Senator Seselja has chosen to support. We are in an extraordinary situation where we have a senator for the ACT, representing the people of the ACT, actually saying that his constituents should not have the same democratic rights as anybody else. He's actually saying that his constituents should have fewer democratic rights than the people who live over the border or in Tasmania, WA, South Australia or Queensland. That is the extraordinary position we are in here.

We have every federal member, other than Senator Seselja, supportive of the overturning of these laws. We have every member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly supporting this, even though those members of the legislative assembly, as I know from experience, would not all back voluntary assisted dying legislation. They wouldn't, and that is their right. I completely accept that every individual member of parliament and every individual member of the community form their own views on this. They will change and they will be different, and there will be disagreement, but allowing the debate to occur is the important thing.

Senator Seselja won't even allow this debate to occur in the legislative assembly, a parliament that he was also a member of. We know this, because we've been written to by every member of the legislative assembly, including the Canberra Liberals—all of them—who have petitioned their federal representatives, saying, 'Please allow us to have this debate in our parliament.' They've actually written to us asking for that, through the Speaker of the assembly, and we're still in the position where Senator Seselja remains a roadblock to this reform. It is important because it would change things if you had a conservative member of the parliament, someone who has strong views around voluntary assisted dying, standing with his colleagues representing the same constituents just to allow the debate to occur.

It's not like we would see the Andrews legislation overturned and then automatically something would happen in the assembly. That is not how it would happen. These are mature parliaments. We give the ACT and Northern Territory parliaments the right to legislate and represent their constituents on every other matter that the states are allowed. They run the emergency services, they run the health system, they run the justice system, they run the education system and they run—in the ACT's case—all of the municipal services and all of the infrastructure. They run a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. The parliament's been in place since 1989 in the ACT. They've managed to look after the community very well. Both sides of politics have managed in government, and yet for some reason we still have this paternalistic view that the territories can't be trusted when it comes to matters around euthanasia.

This is another example where the community moves faster than the parliament. We've seen it in other areas. We saw it on marriage equality where the community wondered what all the fuss was about here. It's a similar thing on voluntary assisted dying. It is an emotional issue. It is a serious issue. There can really be no more serious an issue than matters of life and death. I accept that, and I accept that people will bring their own views to the debate. I support that.

I'm not even sure if I would support the legislation that the assembly might look at. Both my parents passed away from cancer in very, very difficult circumstances. I watched both of them pass away. I nursed them.

I understand that these are incredible difficult issues for people—for families, for loved ones and for individuals themselves. But, at the moment, to anyone in the ACT who is considering the end of life due to a terminal illness or the end of life of one of their loved ones: bad luck. You can lobby your local government all you like but, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter, because the parliament that you elected, your assembly, is not allowed to debate this matter, which might be the most important thing to you. You can debate everything else on the floor of that parliament, but you're not allowed to debate end-of-life matters.

It is absolutely unfair. It is outrageous that it has remained on the statute books for this long—for a quarter of a century. As community views have changed, as debates have raged and been won and lost, as laws have been passed and as millions of people have died, the territories have been unable to represent their citizens and advocate their points of view in their parliament because of this outdated, paternalistic law that the government seems intent on not dealing with.

A Labor government, if elected, will deal with it. We understand that there will be mixed views on the Labor side about end-of-life decision-making, but one thing that we have from Mr Albanese is a commitment that, if elected, he would allow a private member's or private senator's bill to be put to this chamber and the other chamber, because he recognises the right to debate it in this place and the rights of those parliaments, if legislation were to be passed in these chambers, to debate end-of-life decision-making too.

This is important. I thank Senator McMahon for bringing this bill, which I welcome, to the chamber. I think it is right that she be given the opportunity to put this bill. She's worked hard on it. She has sought to engage others in it. I understand she will move amendments that take out certain parts of the bill that Labor was not able to agree with. If those amendments were moved and put, it would change the nature of the bill, and, whilst Labor had a position to oppose the bill, this would allow us to move to a conscience vote on the remaining elements of the bill. If we got to that point, as an ACT senator, I would certainly vote in favour of the McMahon bill with an amendment to incorporate the ACT. If that were in the remaining provisions of the bill—that the Northern Territory and the ACT were allowed to debate voluntary assisted dying legislation, with a complete repeal of the Andrews bill—then I would absolutely support that, as I have supported other bills in this place.

I would hope that the Senate, despite people's own views about end-of-life care and voluntary assisted dying, would at least allow every Australian citizen to enjoy the same democratic rights as those citizens who live in the states. At the moment, that isn't what happens. It's not fair, it's outdated and it's paternalistic, and we should believe that these state governments, which have run our pandemic response and done everything else, can be responsible in how they embark on a discussion with their community about voluntary assisted dying legislation. Frankly, the federal parliament should get out of the way. (Time expired)