Page 3521 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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purport to set aside? It is only the criminal law that is being overridden by these innocuous words "Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law of the Territory". Why do they feel it necessary to set aside these specific provisions of the criminal law? I suppose that we can argue that no doctor of good repute is going, as Mr Connolly put it, to inject the lethal dose. So, one could argue that the homicide bit is drawing a long bow, but the other side of it is not.
Subsection 17(1) of the Crimes Act makes it a crime for a person to aid or abet a suicide. To aid or abet a suicide is to be guilty of an offence under the criminal law. That is what we are setting aside when we accept this clause in its present form. Why are we doing that? If there is no problem, if doctors are not going to aid and abet suicide, why are we moving here to set that provision of the criminal law aside? It is quite deliberate. It is being done to allow doctors to do just that. If that is not the case, let me have the argument why these words are here. Mr Moore's mealy-mouthed words about this not being an active euthanasia Bill are just that. They are rubbish. It is intended to be an active euthanasia Bill, and this is the clause that will permit it. The doctor can aid and abet a suicide, and under this provision he or she will not be guilty as he or she would otherwise be under the criminal law.
If I could have another argument from our learned Attorney-General that tells me that what I have just said is wrong, that I have misunderstood, that this is not the intention of the Bill, then I would like to hear it. I would like to hear his justification for setting aside the criminal law. In the advice that Mr Stevenson quoted at length and that the Attorney-General referred to, it is noted that it is quite likely that the withdrawal of medical treatment culminating in death can occur even when the patient is not terminally ill. In other words, we are not talking about a 97-year-old man who is within minutes of death. We can be talking about an 18-year-old youth who has had a motorcycle accident, who is not terminally ill and who, once through the period of pain and stress, may have a long life ahead of him. Under this provision we will permit the doctor to do what otherwise would be a criminal offence under the Crimes Act and take action that will terminate the life of that young man. I do not accept that as being reasonable at all.
Mr Moore: That would not be considered reasonable.
MR KAINE: Despite what Mr Moore says, I do not accept that, with those words in it, this Bill is not an active euthanasia Bill. It is an active euthanasia Bill, and this is the clause that makes it into such a Bill. Unless Mr Moore and Mr Connolly can justify their position and demonstrate to me that that is not what this clause is about, I will not support it and I will support Mr Stevenson's amendment.
Mr Stevenson's words, in effect, achieve the same objective. "Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law" is okay if it does not specifically exclude the criminal law relating to homicide and suicide. I do not believe that Mr Connolly or Mr Moore can show me or anybody else that those words are as innocuous as they seem. They are not. They are quite deliberate. They deliberately set aside elements of the criminal law. Madam Speaker, I will not vote for the clause, and I think no sane person will either.
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