Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to Senator Gallagher. Thank you for acknowledging the work that I have done, and I thank all of my colleagues in the Senate for hearing me out on this issue and for granting me the opportunity to bring this legislation, the Ensuring Northern Territory Rights Bill 2021—my private senator's bill—to the Senate and to debate it. It is important.

The Northern Territory is, I believe, a very unique place. Everybody probably believes that about where they live. They probably believe that it's special, it's unique and it's the best place in the world. But the Northern Territory is unique. It's a huge landmass. We've got over 1.4 million square kilometres. We don't have many people. We have a very large Indigenous population. We have a great deal of difference in our socioeconomic areas. You've got Darwin, which is quite a metropolitan, cosmopolitan city, and many people live there, as in inner-city Melbourne or inner-city Sydney. Then we have the smaller towns. Katherine is where I'm from. Katherine is the fourth-largest town in the Northern Territory, with a population of about 10,000 people—so it would count as quite a small country town in the rest of Australia.

Our Indigenous communities are spread throughout the Northern Territory, often in some very beautiful but inaccessible locations. A lot of these places are not well serviced by roads, and the people live out there in very small communities and with quite a traditional lifestyle. We have our cattle stations, isolated farms, isolated properties. For some people on some of these properties, it might be an 800-kilometre trip one-way to go shopping. So it is quite sparsely populated, and a unique and different place. Some of our places are not even accessible by road for most of the year. They have to get their supplies brought in by barge or by small plane.

Having such a small population, we are a territory, the same as the ACT, although the ACT is obviously geographically very small. But we are capable of making our own laws. We are capable of governing our people and making our own decisions and deciding what is best for Territorians. I've just described a little bit of the uniqueness of the place. Now, how can you expect someone who lives in Melbourne or Sydney or Canberra to understand what makes the place and the people tick and to know what is best for those people. Only those who live in that environment, who live with those people, can truly know what is the best thing for Territorians.

The Northern Territory was the first jurisdiction in the world to legalise voluntary assisted dying, or voluntary euthanasia, laws. The Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill was introduced into the parliament by then Chief Minister and member for Fannie Bay Marshall Perron on 22 February 1995. Mr Perron actually resigned his Chief Ministership; that's how important this issue was to him. To introduce this private member's bill, he resigned his Chief Ministership so as not to influence his colleagues by the weight of his office. That is a pretty big decision to take and it just shows you the conviction that he had in introducing these laws for Territorians. Mr Perron said at the time:

This bill is based on a relatively simple principle: if there are terminally ill patients who wish to end their suffering by accelerating inevitable death, and there are sympathetic doctors who are willing to help them die with dignity, then the law should not forbid it. There are such patients, and there are such doctors, and the law does forbid it.

Mr Perron recognised that, with the laws forbidding this from occurring, you were taking away people's right to die without suffering and to die with dignity. is Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill was passed by the Northern Territory's Legislative Assembly on 25 May 1995. The Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 entered into law on 1 July 1996—25 years ago.

The following year the Commonwealth parliament intervened to overturn this act. Section 50A was added to the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978 to prohibit the Northern Territory from making laws in respect of voluntary assisted dying. In June 1996, Mr Kevin Andrews, the member for Menzies, in the Commonwealth House of Representatives announced his intention to introduce a private members bill to override the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act. On 9 September 1996 he introduced the bill entitled Euthanasia Laws Bill 1996 in the House. On 7 November 1996, while debate on the bill continued in the House of Representatives, the Senate Selection of Bills Committee recommended, and the Senate agreed, that the provisions of the bill be referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee for inquiry. The report was tabled in the House in March 1997. On 9 December 1996, the House of Representatives agreed to the bill with amendments.

The Rights of the Terminally Ill Act in the Northern Territory was in force for nine months, during which time four people died by medically assisted procedures. At the time, the overturning of this legislation by the Commonwealth was seen by the Northern Territory as taking away the rights of Territorians to legislate for themselves. Now I understand it. I get it. At the time we were the first jurisdiction in the world to do this, so I understand that people in this place said: 'Clearly they're all mad. They can't make decisions for themselves. They've lost the plot. They can't govern responsibly, so we're going to step in and we're going to look after those poor people up there in the Northern Territory whose government has quite clearly lost the plot.' I get that, but that was 25 years ago. Time has moved on and the world has moved on.

The world is a very different place, and there are now many, many jurisdictions that have legislation around voluntary assisted dying—including most states of Australia. They can make those laws. The states can make those laws. The territories can't. The territories are still prohibited from legislating for their people. In this way, Northern Territorians are being treated as second-class citizens, and so are the residents of the ACT. The residents of the territories are being treated as though they can't govern for themselves. As we've heard, the territories have multi-billion-dollar budgets. They look after everything else. They legislate for everything else that affects their citizens, but they can't do this one thing that all the states are saying we need to do for the people.

I get that 25 years ago the Northern Territory was ahead of its time. History has proved that. We weren't crazy back then. We were not crazy; we were just ahead of our time. The fact that almost every other jurisdiction in Australia has passed or is considering these laws shows that. We've been vindicated. We weren't mad. We were just ahead of our time. You might say about the Northern Territory, 'You're just a small place. You don't have many people. How could that be?' Well, maybe that's why. Maybe it's because we are a small, tight-knit community and we look after each other because we are isolated up there, because we've grown up having to look after ourselves and each other. Maybe that is why we were ahead of the game? Maybe that's why we were ahead of our time? We got together, we saw what was happening, we saw what people wanted and our Legislative Assembly at the time had the fortitude to pass voluntary assisted dying laws for the people of the Northern Territory. I'm not here to debate what those laws might look like or the attributes or otherwise of voluntary assisted dying, because that's a matter for the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. They are best placed to debate those laws and bring them into effect if they want to—they can't currently but they could. That is not for me to debate.

I am an advocate for voluntary assisted dying. I'm a veterinarian. I see what effect the relief of pain and suffering has on animals and their loved ones all the time, but that's not the purpose here today. This is not to make laws about voluntary assisted dying or assisted euthanasia; this is to empower the people of the Northern Territory to enjoy the same representation and power to make their own laws that almost everyone else around Australia has. The two territories are cut out of this. They can't even have this debate, but everyone else in Australia can.

Is it fair? Is it right? Is it just that, because you happen to live in the ACT or the Northern Territory, you don't have the right to have the same governance that someone who lives in New South Wales, Western Australia or Tasmania has? Is it right that territorians don't enjoy the same freedom of having their government pass laws for them? That is my argument. That is not right; that is not just.

The Commonwealth stands back in every other argument saying: 'It's up to the states to decide if they want to have biosecurity in place. It's up to the states to decide about quarantine. It's up to the states to decide this.' However, in this area, the Commonwealth government is still saying: 'No, you can't. We're going to stop you. We're going to override your right to make fair, just and needed laws for your people.' That is absolutely not right; it is not fair. It is time for the Commonwealth to pull back from this argument and say to the territories: 'We got it wrong 25 years ago. We thought you were mad. We thought you were nuts. We thought you'd lost the plot, but we were actually wrong: you hadn't. It turns out you were ahead of the game, and we will give you back the right to make laws, if you so desire, around this very sensitive topic. It is sensitive. It is emotive, and there are different points of view; however, we give you the right to have that debate and that discussion with your people if they want to pass laws around voluntary assisted dying and that is what you decide is right for your people.'

It is time for the Commonwealth to get out of the way of the territories and let them make laws around this issue, the way they let them make laws around everything else that governs everything from economic policy to life-and-death decisions that affect peoples' everyday lives. Let them make laws around voluntary assisted dying, if they so desire, that will have an effect on peoples' lives. Territorians no longer want, and certainly don't need, voluntary assisted decision-making. Thank you.