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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 84 ..

MR MOORE (10.48): Mr Speaker, I present the Medical Treatment (Amendment) Bill 1997.

Title read by Clerk.

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, I move:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, should it choose to pass this Bill the ACT Assembly will bring to the Territory a regime of controlled voluntary active euthanasia, available to persons who are dying amid great pain or suffering. This legislation is not about killing people. The people who may choose to use this legislation are already dying. The legislation applies only to a person who is in a terminal phase of a terminal illness and who is in great pain or suffering. The person who uses the legislation chooses the time, place and manner of their death.

This Bill has been introduced before and defeated. I am returning this Bill to the Assembly because legislation of this kind remains the desire of the public and because it will be good law. Since this Bill was last debated in November 1995 the Northern Territory law has come into force. Voluntary active euthanasia has been discussed across the nation. The debate has matured, and the public are better informed than they have ever been on the means of achieving reform. I must also say, with great disappointment, that they have also been subjected to much disinformation - a subject to which I shall return.

Since I first began considering voluntary euthanasia law reform in the early 1990s I have become increasingly convinced that the case for permitting voluntary active euthanasia is a compelling one. The issue at heart is one of liberty - the liberty of individuals against the domination of other social forces, be they government, the medical profession, the church, or the overbearing influence of one opinion over others. In opposition to liberty have been the establishment views of some of the medical profession, some of the churches and some of their followers. Whilst our society goes to great pains to ensure the liberty of believers to practise their faith without hindrance, it seems that that attitude is not reciprocated. This failure saddens me, and it diminishes our society by diminishing the strength of our social contract.

The irony of those who demand freedom of religious practice and then attempt to deny freedom of choice through their religious views is not missed by the majority of Australians. The irony of those who demand a conscience vote for themselves in order to deny a conscience vote for people who are disempowered, dying and suffering will also not be missed. Indeed, the irony of those who preach love and then lack the compassion to allow the dying and suffering to choose to suffer no more will also not be missed.

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