Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) congratulates Victoria on the recent passage of voluntary assisted dying legislation;

(b) encourages all Australian states to follow suit; and

(c) calls upon the Federal Government to respect the wishes of the residents of all Australian territories with regards to dying with dignity.

Hollywood got it right more than 35 years ago when they made a movie, starring Richard Dreyfus, called Whose Life Is It Anyway? More than 35 years ago, the issue of voluntary euthanasia—dying with dignity—was of such interest worldwide that Hollywood made a film about it. That's the one question that its opponents can't answer when the issue of voluntary euthanasia comes up. Whose life is it, anyway? It's mine. Who are you to tell me that I cannot voluntarily end my suffering if my body is racked with pain and relentless terminal illness. If the quality of your existence is so miserable, so painful, so helpless and so hopeless, I believe you are entitled to say, 'Enough is enough,' and end it. That is not a cowardly thing to do. It's a brave thing to do.

The issue of voluntary euthanasia is in the news again today because the Victorian parliament has just passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill. It's the first state in Australia to pass such legislation, although of course it has been attempted many times in many states and there have been a number of attempts to pass federal legislation, which I have long believed is the way Australia should have gone and still should go. And of course it's more than 20 years since the Northern Territory briefly had legalised dying with dignity. I think back to 1997, when that was scuttled by Canberra with a private member's bill from the man I used to call the Brylcreemed Bible Basher, Kevin Andrews, backed by Prime Minister Howard—I don't know why I say 'backed by', because it had Howard's fingerprints all over it—and also the powerful religious lobby groups, like the Lyons Forum and Right to Life. The Andrews spoiler was also backed by the then opposition leader, Kim Beazley, and Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer. It was fast-tracked through this Senate and the Canberra Christians triumphed.

Of course, there was a similar attempt here in the ACT. In fact, the Liberal Democrats have a motion before this chamber to restore those rights in the Northern Territory and the ACT, and I believe that the Greens have plans to again introduce a federal bill. I think that Senator Leyonhjelm will speak to this issue today.

The aim of voluntary euthanasia and the legislation is as simple as it is noble. Let a person pass away with dignity and pride; don't make them flee overseas to a Swiss clinic, or smuggle illegal drugs in from Mexico. Don't make loved ones co-conspirators, facing the risk of murder or manslaughter charges just for lovingly responding to one final plea.

I've long been a supporter of voluntary euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, who has been pilloried by the AMA. He's risked his career, his freedom, his reputation and even his personal safety by campaigning for the ultimate civil right, and that is the right to take your own life. And it is your right. I know I have used before the example of my own mother's death, and I make no apology for that. She was five years younger than I am now when she contracted terminal cancer. After chemotherapy, she developed thrush in her throat and could not swallow food. She existed on melted ice-cream as she slipped into a twilight zone. I watched my mother waste away, and in her final days she looked like a Biafran famine victim. If she had been a dog and an RSPCA inspector had walked into that room where I sat next to her bed, I would have justifiably been charged with cruelty to animals.

My mother was not living; she was existing. A morphine shunt was in her side; it was controlling some of the pain. But I looked at her and it seriously crossed my mind that as a last act of love I should put a pillow over her face and end it, because she wanted to die. Mum had said many times in family discussions that if ever it happened, that if ever it came to that, then she wanted to die. And I feel the same way.

Seven years ago I was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and given 12 months to live if I didn't get a transplant. As the clock ran down to months and then weeks without a life-saving transplant, I told loved ones and close friends that I had made plans to end it if my quality of life deteriorated. I said, 'That's what I'll do, without implicating anybody else, if my quality of life disappears or I start to lose my marbles.'

Now, it wasn't a surprise or news to them. My views on voluntary euthanasia have been pretty public for many years. I said 30 years ago that if I got terminally ill, that's the way I'd go. I once told Herald Sun reporter, Patrick Carlyon:

If my mind started to go, there would be nothing left for me. If I got really sick, I'd kill myself, no doubt about it. I believe in euthanasia, make no bones about it.

I believe a person has the right to die. I believe a person has the right to commit suicide… although I think that is sometimes a coward’s way out that pains and scars bewildered and guilt-ridden loved ones left behind.

When a person is terminally ill, their emaciated bodies shrunken beyond recognition and wracked with pain, they are entitled to say 'whose life is it, anyway?" and make a calculated decision to end it.

The issue of voluntary euthanasia is supported by at least 70 per cent of Australians. But many of our politicians and many religious leaders have inordinate sway in Canberra and in the state capitals. In Melbourne about three years ago an intelligent and dedicated campaigner, Dr Rodney Syme, defiantly served himself up as a test case. He publicly admitted giving Nembutal to terminally-ill journalist Stephen Guest, who took those pills and killed himself two weeks later. Dr Syme has said that he has helped scores of sick people die. He's virtually told the authorities: 'Come and get me. Make me a test case.' But most politicians don't want to know about it.

Syme believes that there is what he calls a 'benign conspiracy' among police, prosecutors, the coroners and governments not to charge doctors who help people end their lives. And I agree with him. Everybody knows it goes on; everybody does. Usually it's the nurses under instruction who do it, but doctors take life-ending actions all the time—and emails from nurses to me have reaffirmed that. What angers me is that hypocrites, like some of the religious zealots who oppose the 'dying with dignity' legislation, will leave it to the doctors to make those decisions for them—because it happens to terminal patients in major Australian hospitals everyday. I bet you it happened today. As the movie title said 35 years ago, whose life is it anyway? Whose indeed.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to read out a statement in relation to how the Labor Party will be dealing with this. Voluntary assisted dying laws are principally a matter for state parliaments. The Victorian parliament has recently passed legislation to allow voluntary assisted dying in that state for a limited number of people and under strict circumstances and safeguards. This followed years of consultation with experts and the Victorian community, and lengthy debate in both houses of the Victorian parliament. Given that this is a sensitive and complex issue, Labor has previously allowed a conscience vote to its members—that is, Labor senators have not been bound to vote in a particular way. We will take the same approach to this motion today.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I enter this debate to indicate my support for the principle of the motion moved by Senator Hinch. This issue has already been before this parliament twice in the time I have been here, and I have made my position clear on both occasions. The first occasion, as I recall, was when the Commonwealth overrode a Northern Territory law in this regard. I voted against that on two grounds: first, I didn't think we should be overriding a territory law; and, second, I also thought that Australians should have the opportunity and the right for a medically assisted death where they make that decision themselves.

I appreciate there have been many religious and other grounds for opposition to this in the debates that I have been involved in. The matter is always raised about how greedy children will terminate the life of elderly parents so they can get their money more quickly. That, first of all, shows a very poor view of mankind but, secondly, they are extreme cases. On other occasions the pieces of legislation talked about—I haven't followed the Victorian one this time around—have had any number of protections. And it is not the greedy children of the person involved—or anyone else—that makes the decision; it is the person themselves who makes the decision.

In the other instance when this came before the parliament, it was a Senate inquiry into medically assisted death. I actually chaired that inquiry and I recommended that a bill in some form be adopted by the parliament. It was a private members' bill and, as I recall, it never actually came to a vote as such. But even that private members' legislation had inordinately complex and extensive hoops that had to be gone through before a person could decide that they wished to terminate their life, and it included a lot of psychiatric involvement.

So, provided that there are the right protections, I continue my support for medically assisted death. Like Senator Hinch, I've seen my mother in that situation, and more recently I've seen my sister in that situation. And Senator Hinch makes a very good point. This is not perhaps a good example, but we had a cat that we very much loved and we couldn't bear to see it in pain, so we got the vet to come around—paid a lot to get the vet to make a house call in those days—to put the cat out of its misery. But we don't do that with human beings. I still remember, from this inquiry, that I talked about a very courageous young man from Melbourne who came and gave evidence. He had terminal cancer, and he pleaded with the committee to support that. He knew he was going to die, but he wanted to do it at a time of his choosing. He wanted to do it when his family, his wife and his children were all there by his bedside. He didn't want to be by himself at three o'clock in the morning and suddenly leave this world. He gave wonderful evidence to the committee about his particular situation. Unfortunately we weren't able to accommodate his final wish: that he could actually decide the time and place of what he knew was going to be his death.

Again, I indicate that, with the right safeguards, people should be given the opportunity of bringing forward the time of their death so that they can indicate the time, the place and those they want to be with them when they leave this world. So I would support this motion as I have done on two previous occasions. One day, we will see this become the law of Australia—with, I want to add and emphasise, all the necessary and appropriate safeguards so that some of the concerns raised are properly dealt with.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 1997, Kevin Andrews succeeded in pushing a private member's bill through federal parliament, overturning the first legislation to permit assisted suicide in Australia, enacted in the Northern Territory. Since then, not only does assisting someone to commit suicide remain a serious crime in all states—except for Victoria's recent provisions—but it is also a crime in the territories. Three states have life imprisonment as the maximum penalty, while in others the maximum penalty varies from five to 25 years. This is extraordinarily cruel. The denial of the right to die at a time of our choosing can result in a lingering, painful death. It is also at odds with the fact that we have both a fundamental and a legal right to choose whether we wish to continue living.

It is important to state this clearly, because people often forget that suicide was once illegal, and failed attempts frequently led to prosecution. In medieval England, suicides were denied a Christian burial. Instead, they were carried to a crossroads in the dead of night and dumped in a pit, with a wooden stake hammered through the body to pin it in place. There were no clergy or mourners, and no prayers were offered. But punishment did not end with death: the deceased's family were stripped of their belongings, which were handed to the Crown. This remained the case until 1822. Michael MacDonald and Terrence Murphy, in Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England, wrote:

The suicide of an adult male could reduce his survivors to pauperism.

This did not change because of a significant campaign for a change in suicide legislation. Instead, there was a gradual realisation that the laws of the day were at odds with society's view and that care, not prosecution, was needed. Dr David Wright, co-author of the book Histories of Suicide: International Perspectives on Self-Destruction in the Modern World, wrote:

From the middle of the 18th Century to the mid-20th Century there was growing tolerance and a softening of public attitudes towards suicide, which was a reflection of, among other things, the secularisation of society and the emergence of the medical profession.

This freedom is now mostly well-accepted. Whilst suicide is often an occasion for sadness, there is also a recognition that people do not belong to their families, their clans or to the government. An individual may have good reason to take his or her own life, but even if they don't, it is still their own decision to make.

But there is a catch. The law says we are only permitted to die by our own hand, without assistance. Indeed, in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the ACT, reasonable force can still be used to stop a person from committing suicide. If we are too weak or incapacitated to end our lives ourselves, apart from the quite limited circumstances now provided in Victoria, we are condemned to suffer until nature takes its course. It is a serious offence for anyone to help us to die, at our instruction, or even to tell us how to do it for ourselves. One of the consequences of this is that it can compel people to end their lives sooner than they would like. Understandably, people prefer to avoid the risk that they will become incapable of committing suicide themselves, doomed to live out the remainder of their lives in pain and helplessness.

Most fair-minded people accept that painlessly ending animal suffering is an act of compassion. As a veterinarian, I have often made the decision to put an animal to sleep, because animals are not people and cannot give consent. However, for us humans, even when we give consent and beg for help, the law prohibits the same compassion. There is no better marker of individual freedom than the ability to decide what to do with our own body. If the law prevents us from making free choices about it, then we are not really free at all. Our bodies are not our own, but under the control of someone else who tells us what we cannot do with it. In reality, this is the state. Yet, bodily autonomy is well-recognised in other areas. Nothing prevents us from getting tattoos, dyeing our hair purple or sporting multiple studs and piercings. We are just not allowed the ultimate autonomy.

Legalisation of assisted suicide is long overdue in Australia. Opinion polls show that more than 80 per cent of Australians are in favour, across all political parties. It is high time that governments accepted that, on this deeply personal matter, their intrusion is not warranted.

Now I turn to the inevitable objections. Despite what some people think, this is not about bumping off granny to inherit the house. Assisted suicide is simply helping someone to do something that they would do for themselves if they were not so ill or feeble. The absolute essential element is genuine active consent. This is emphatically not implied consent or acquiescence. Ending someone's life when they haven't given consent is murder. Nobody wants that. Moreover, this is not about living wills or withdrawing medical assistance. Those are different issues. Equally, those contemplating suicide should be made aware of the availability of palliative care to make their last days less agonising, and should have treatment options in the case of mental illness. Indeed, the decision to die with or without assistance should be rational and well informed in all cases, including an awareness of the attitudes of loved ones left behind. Of course, consent must be verified. I don't believe medical practitioners are any better qualified than anyone else to confirm this, but obviously the decision must be genuine. It is essential to ensure the choice is made without coercion or pressure.

I welcome Victoria's recent decision to allow assisted dying in circumstances where death is expected within six or 12 months. I regard the provision that passed as too prescriptive and too medicalised, but at least the blanket denial is no longer there.

I don't believe the Commonwealth has jurisdiction over assisted suicide. All it can do is get out of the way of the states and territories exercising their jurisdiction. The Euthanasia Laws Act 1997, the Andrews bill I referred to earlier, removed the power of each of the territories to legalise assisted suicide with a specific focus on repeal of the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995. While it is simply too late to reinstate the Northern Territory act, repeal of the Andrews act would send a signal to states and territories that their legislatures may now turn their attention to this issue. As a bonus, it would support federalism in lawmaking. For too long, the Commonwealth has waded into areas that are properly the business of the states and territories. Allowing the states and territories control over their own affairs, which is the point of federalism, allows innovation in lawmaking. We currently see this in various ways. For example, the Northern Territory does not require cyclists to wear bicycle helmets on cyclepaths or footpaths. As a result, the Northern Territory has high cycling participation rates, while the Territory's serious injury rate is the same as the national average and better than several states where helmet use is mandatory.

But, whatever we might think of the decisions others make about their lives, it is their decision, not ours. The law should respect their right to make their own choices. Whether as legislators or as private citizens, our approval is neither necessary nor relevant. The permission of the government should not be required, just as it is no longer required with respect to suicide.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to try and keep my comments brief. I am and have always been opposed to the state or, indeed, humankind being involved in the termination of the lives of human beings. It matters not whether it's abortion, euthanasia or, of course, capital punishment. As someone who served as a detective for 16 years and had been involved in the investigation of many heinous crimes, you would have thought that at some stage I would have converted my thinking to support the idea of capital punishment. I do not. In fact, I had quite a unique experience as a detective in that I was appointed to study at the FBI behavioural science facility at their academy south of Washington, where I spent four months looking at serial killers. Every day, I was confronted with a diet of slides and reports and photographs and videos of crime scenes where the victims were, more often than not, women or children and where the circumstances were heinous beyond description in most cases. You would think that an experience like that would bring an individual to consider capital punishment as being an appropriate punishment in particular circumstances.

But it did not because, at the same time, research had been conducted—and I took a great interest in it—in a number of cases in the United States, particularly in that jurisdiction, where it was determined that people who had been killed through capital punishment had been wrongly convicted. They were innocent people. The state created a rule, or a law in that case, to take their lives as a result of a process. So what it said to me—and I am not for one second trying to compare those circumstances to the circumstances of patients who find themselves in most difficult circumstances—is that human kind is not developed enough, nor do I think it will ever be, to make decisions around the lives of people, including some of the people themselves who are confronted with circumstances where they make that decision. We have a situation in Belgium where euthanasia is lawful, even to the extent where parents are able to make a decision on behalf of their children. In one cited case—and I place on the record that I have not tested the references—there were two young girls from one family who, through a genetic condition, were born deaf. Through that genetic condition—these children were twins of 12 years of age—they were going blind. A decision was taken by the parents—I can only imagine that it was perhaps in consultation with the children—that the two children, who were otherwise totally healthy, would be euthanised. I can't imagine the sort of pressure on a family like that, including the two young ladies and their parents, in having to make such a decision. But I would never support a law made by the state that would allow those sorts of decisions to have been taken.

I suspect that there are hundreds and hundreds of occasions each month in our country where, with the use of palliative care, people's lives come to an end perhaps earlier than they might otherwise do if acute medical attention were continued. In fact, I've had the experience myself. My late wife passed away after she had an aneurysm that left her with no prospect whatsoever of living without the aid of a life support system. Events there, without me particularising them, brought her life to a close where perhaps she may have continued with, might I say, no life at all on a life support system. So I think that in some instances, in extreme cases, our society is also, in effect, through the withdrawal of medical care or continued medical care, allowing people to die with dignity when they are way beyond any prospect of help or recovery.

I feel very, very strongly about this matter. I feel for the people who find themselves in these circumstances. But if this parliament were to be confronted with legislation like this on a national level, we would need to go very, very, very carefully. There is a very large body of research around the implications of these things. Mine is a practical position, but as a practising Catholic I am often guided by faith in these matters. I would urge very, very steady and careful consideration of these matters. I remain satisfied that each of us, to the extent that we can, will become a scholar on the topic. Many people will share my view that humanity does not have the capacity to put in place the protections that would prevent assisted suicide from taking the lives of people whose prospects were not quite as the seemed—people who perhaps had a future—through misdiagnosis and a whole range of those issues. I urge colleagues to think very carefully about it. I cannot support the motion.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't intend to detain the Senate for very long in making my remarks. If Senator Canavan was hoping to speak and seeks the call before six o'clock, he should be able to.

I simply want to indicate that I do intend to support the motion before us. I do so with a view that we ought to proceed very cautiously and carefully with reforms related to dying with dignity. I note that the approach that was taken both in New South Wales and in Victoria involved extensive public consultation and extensive parliamentary debate. To that extent, and to the extent that the motion before us alludes to those processes and those kinds of community engagements necessary for reforms of this kind, I am willing to support it. However, I think the motion's language refers to encouraging the states and territories to proceed in this way. I would support it on the proviso that it was a very engaging debate which involved everyone in the community. It is on that basis that I'm willing to provide my support.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to Senator McAllister for ceding some time to me in the limited period before 6 pm. I want to indicate briefly that I will not support this motion. I do not support it principally because I believe, fundamentally, that every human life is special and should be protected. In my view no-one, including any individual, should have the right to destroy life. I say that with respect to those who have put arguments opposite to mine.

I wonder, if we have future opportunities to debate this issue in this chamber, whether there can be a serious engagement or a serious response to the natural ethical viewpoints that are often put forward in defence or in opposition to euthanasia, because, frankly, comparing the ending of a life to getting a tattoo or a haircut or some other act is, in my view, a little immature. It does not seriously take into account the distinction that surely must come when we're talking about matters of human life. Likewise, these are issues Senator Hinch dismissed. He was dismissive of the views of the Australian Medical Association and dismissive of views of medical doctors who have to deal with matters of life and death on a daily basis.

I fear that we are not getting to the root of what is behind arguments in support of euthanasia. Behind those arguments, fundamentally, is a different ethical system to what many of our laws in Western society are based on. It is an ethical system based on unrestricted and rampant utilitarianism which elevates the perceived desires or happiness of an individual above all other considerations. I think it is worthy of a serious debate about whether that ethical system produces better societal results than others, including those of a natural law ethical system, which is the ethical system my particular faith—the Catholic faith—is based on. But it's not only a Catholic ethical system, or religious ethical system; it's a legitimate secular ethical approach to important and weighty questions. I don't know what the Catholic Church thinks about getting tattoos, but certainly the natural law has something to say about how special and unique life is.

I think we easily forget that—it was some time ago, but well within the memory of human civilisation—there was a common practice of infanticide, of putting young children who were not seen to be worthy members of the community to death. That's not something we'd accept today, but the ethical system that is being put forward here in arguments for euthanasia does open the door and does remove such limits from such conduct. I gravely fear what that would mean for our society which fundamentally still does, I believe, protect and cherish every human life regardless of disability or conception.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It now being 6 pm, the debate is interrupted.