Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to make a contribution to the Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022. I appreciate that it is unlikely to stop this, but I'd like to put this on the record.

The Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory are so far apart, and not just in terms of distance. It is simplistic to think that the Restoring Territory Rights Bill is about territory rights. This bill only seeks to repeal sections of the act which deal with a single issue: medically assisted dying. The NT population is small, at 233,000, and 44 per cent of its citizens are Aboriginal. Thirty per cent of its population is regarded as 'just visiting'. Average individual income is $267 less than that in the ACT. Compare those figures to the ACT population at just over 454,000, two per cent of whom are Aboriginal. And 20 per cent have more tertiary education than those in the NT.

The Northern Territory federal seat of Lingiari, which covers the NT except for Greater Darwin, has the highest proportion of Indigenous people of any electorate in the country, many of whom live in remote communities, and it has the lowest rate of voter enrolment in the nation. If the NT considers this, it is those people who will be poorly represented in the conversation. Illness and death visit Aboriginal people at uber alarming rates compared with other Australians. I've weighed up the fact that the need to protect the most vulnerable people is necessary. Those who will be impacted differently and disproportionately by this legislation, regardless of cultural, social or economic disadvantage, need greater protection. So I support this amendment.

Legislation is one thing, but its implementation is quite another. I have considered, also, spending millions and millions on improving the high rate of early deaths of Aboriginal people—12 years less for men and 10 for women—only to offer those with multiple, complex chronic illnesses a legal way to bring about an early death. Remember, there is more death much earlier and with much more comorbidity caused by health issues like heart and kidney disease, diabetes, liver disease, chronic lower respiratory disease, cancer—these are major contributors in Aboriginal communities.

This legislation will be significant for the people of the Northern Territory, and they need to have this explained to them to avoid fear and misinformation. I am a senator for South Australia but I was born, raised and still have land, family and community connections in the Northern Territory—in the towns, in remote communities and even in town camps. It is my lived understanding, not a textbook understanding, of these unintended consequences. These are very real issues.

I refer to an assessment of the view of some Aboriginal communities in a study from 1996. Yes, it was some 26 years ago, but nothing of note has been done since. The results, though, couldn't have been clearer. Nine hundred people in 100 communities took part. The result was virtually unanimous; a statistically undeniable 99.7 per cent were against voluntary assisted death. That's almost every Indigenous person interviewed for this research being against it.

Coercion is a very real issue in communities, a very real issue for those who experience it, and must be part of the conversation. This has been highlighted as a key issue in the lively debates about voluntary assisted death. I'm not talking about those who just harass, intimidate and silence; I'm talking about those who simply have busy lives and have difficulty with patience, attention and advocacy demanded of someone who is very ill and demanded of them when someone is very ill. We need to protect those vulnerable to the threat of coercion.

I'm not alarmist to acknowledge that, should the NT move to legalise this, it will make vulnerable people even more vulnerable. Additional safeguards are needed, and they are needed in the Northern Territory. That's why I support this amendment.