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Canberra Times . . Page.. 1317 ..

Mr Osborne: How many were polled?

MR MOORE: The interjection from Mr Osborne is: “How many were polled?”. I am glad that he asked that question, because Mr Osborne - my understanding is - said to the newspaper, “Of course, you cannot draw conclusions from a poll of 500”. If Mr Osborne were to look back over the last three elections and see how accurately the Canberra Times polling, with a sample size of 500, predicted the results, it would make him rethink his position. Anybody who studies polling would know that a sample size of 500 does give a significant accuracy.

Mr Berry: But a sample size of seven is a different matter.

MR MOORE: Indeed. There was an interjection in terms of Mr Osborne's own sample size. With a sample size of seven, the conclusions are very woolly. I do not think that that is a significant finding.

Mr Osborne: Woolly?

MR MOORE: With reference to you, Mr Osborne, only; they are woolly. Even more interesting, though, is that of those who responded yes - and here we are talking of numbers over 100 in the first couple of cases at least - the figure was 86.3 per cent for Anglicans and 61.4 per cent for Catholics. They were very strong sample sizes. For other religions, with much less strong sample sizes, the percentages were: 77.5 for Presbyterians; 74.8 for Uniting Church people; 100 per cent for Methodists - in that case, I think it was only a handful - and 53.2 per cent for Baptists.

The results showed overwhelming support for active euthanasia legislation in the ACT, after this issue had been debated for a rather long time. Certainly, the matter was raised in the First Assembly; the matter was debated at length in the Second Assembly, including through the Select Committee on Euthanasia; and both the Labor Party and I went to this last election making very clear and publicly clear our position on active euthanasia. The matter has had a great deal of public discussion and consultation. It appears to be abundantly clear that after years of having this issue before the community of the ACT, and Australia generally, the community has made its position clear through a range of media; through independent surveys; and through, for example, branch representation in political parties.

I suspect that there are many reasons for the changing attitudes of our population to this question. I believe that we have an increasingly educated and assertive patient population who insist on their right to choose their medical treatment and matters of conscience, rather than be dictated to by churches or other controlling forces. We have an ageing community which is aware of death, dying, and the often terrifying medical postponement of death through medical and technological intervention. There is an increasing number of deaths occurring from cancer and AIDS, and people are aware that there are ongoing limitations in pain relief and quality of life.

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