Page 819 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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greatest representation. In fact, of the 44 people who appeared before us, 12 were formally associated with the Catholic Church, which made its position very clear in straight opposition to the Bill. Indeed, there was a range of other people opposed to the concept who also appeared before us.
For various reasons, the committee determined that at this time it was inappropriate for the Assembly to proceed with the active clauses of this Bill. They were the controversial clauses, but I must say that they did account for only some 10 to 20 per cent of what I had hoped to achieve in tabling the Voluntary and Natural Death Bill. There were other particularly important issues that I believed needed to be resolved. Those issues included the ability of people to make an advance directive, sometimes referred to as a living will, and the ability of people to ensure that if they wished to have life support machines removed they would be able to do so. These are the areas that are normally referred to as passive euthanasia, and they have been dealt with in a positive way by the committee.
The committee has prepared a Medical Treatment Bill, which has been to Parliamentary Counsel and has been through a brief consultation process. We sent the original draft of the Medical Treatment Bill to those who were most strongly opposed to the Voluntary and Natural Death Bill, namely, the Catholic Church, particularly the bishop, the Anglican bishop, the AMA, and a few other groups. They in turn responded seeking some modifications. Those modifications were implemented, and we now have the Medical Treatment Bill as an attachment to the report. It is my intention to table the Medical Treatment Bill in this house, so there will be even further opportunities for discussion on that Bill. The Government will have an appropriate opportunity to respond and then, I presume, further modifications may well be made, and appropriately so.
I think the 80 per cent of what I set out to achieve that is embodied in the Medical Treatment Bill will be a significant advance for our society. It will allow people to make one of the most important decisions of their lives, that is, a decision about their own life, in an advanced way. It will also allow doctors to make sensible and rational decisions about assisting people through some of their most difficult times. It will not allow active intervention to induce death.
The most important thing that has come out of the research of the select committee is in relation to palliative care. On page 4 of our report we talk about palliative care and hospice facilities, and the most important recommendation is that a suitably qualified pain management specialist be appointed to the public hospital service in the Territory. This is in no way a criticism of the former Minister for Health or the Government. We understand that they had taken some action in order to seek that appointment and there were a series of reasons as to why that appointment was not able to be made.
It is important that people have assistance with their pain management. A series of furphies have been circulated as part and parcel of the debate on euthanasia. One of those furphies is that it is possible to provide pain management in all cases, that our palliative care and our pain management are so good at the moment that nobody needs to die in pain. In evidence before the committee, the specialists in this area indicated a range of from 5 per cent to 20 per cent of people who would still die in pain in spite of the advances made in pain management. We all hope that in the not too distant future more advances in pain management are made and that nobody will need to die in pain.
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