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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (22 November) . . Page.. 2263 ..

MR CONNOLLY (continuing):

perhaps have an ingrained approach that "I should always think of somebody else rather than me; there is somebody who needs this bed more than I do", and the subtle pressures that the state sanctioning euthanasia could provide to push people in the direction of accepting the active ending of life.

Mr Speaker, like all members, I have received many representations from members of the community, many hundreds of letters overwhelmingly urging me not to support euthanasia, but some very strong and compelling arguments also in favour of euthanasia. I should acknowledge the difficulty that a very well argued letter from the AIDS Action Council has given me, and representatives of the council are present here today. I am afraid that I am not able to accept your views on this. I have on many issues, and I think my record as a legislator on those issues is a strong one, but I cannot accept the argument for active intervention to end a life.

One thing I am most proud of in my period as Health Minister is the fact that, with the support of my colleagues, the Labor Government was able finally to get up the concept of an ACT hospice - a concept that Wayne Berry championed for many years and got to the starting blocks. We ran into intractable Commonwealth planning problems, but we got it open. It was an indictment on the ACT that we were not able to offer the full range of options for people facing the reality of imminent death and needing expert palliative care. We now have that. It gave me great pleasure to see some of the recent press articles about how well that hospice is functioning. The arguments from the Palliative Care Association and statements from the national president of that body against active euthanasia now make sense in the ACT because we do have the option of quality hospice-based care, which we did not have until less than a year ago.

Mr Speaker, this legislature has previously debated the issue of euthanasia in the sense only of the so-called right-to-die law, the natural death provisions, and I think that should be referred to in any debate on active euthanasia. I share the concern Rosemary Follett mentioned earlier that that law is not widely known or understood in the community. The law we passed last year was not a unanimous view of the house. There were members who felt that on ethical, moral or religious grounds they were not able to support Mr Moore's natural death law. I thought they were wrong, and I supported that law quite strongly. I am concerned, and I have raised this before, that, when I asked how many times people have availed themselves of the ability to ask that life support treatment be withdrawn, the Government's response was that that information is impossible to obtain. That does worry me. If I were minded to support active euthanasia, the fact that such records are not available would certainly make me less minded to support it.

The fact is that any death in a hospital has to be investigated, quite properly, simply as part of the quality checking mechanisms within a hospital. There is a committee that looks at every case. Mostly, it is a routine matter; but, when a life support machine has been turned off and a person dies as a result of that, surely the first thing that goes before the committee at Woden hospital that examines all deaths and in most cases then goes on to the coroner in a paper brief, and the first thing that is recorded, is that that machine was turned off as a result of the written directions received in accordance with the relevant

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