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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (26 February) . . Page.. 430 ..

MR SPEAKER: With regard to the next item of business, I would like to remind members of the Assembly's resolution of 19 February 1997, as amended on 25 February 1997, to permit the recording of proceedings with sound for the use of television networks and radio stations. There has also been a request by photographers to take still photographs and, if the Assembly gives leave, I intend to permit a photographer to take such photographs.

Leave granted.

Debate resumed from 19 February 1997, on motion by Mr Moore:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (10.49): Mr Speaker, this is an issue that many of us in this place have spoken on before. I personally wish that I had a religious conviction that made it easy for me to say yes or no on this Bill. That simply is not the case, as I have said before. Mr Speaker, this is a social issue, it is a cultural issue, it is a political issue, it is a legal issue and it is a moral issue. It is an issue on which nobody in this place can hide behind a political party or any particular ideology. It is an issue on which every single one of us has to come to grips with what we personally believe and think is right for us and right for the community more generally. This is about people's right to live and die with dignity. It is about quality of life. It is about a lot of the really basic tenets that I am sure everybody in this place believes in.

From my perspective, Mr Speaker, the difficulty of this legislation, as I have spoken about before, is the lines that it draws. It attempts to set into black-letter law something that is almost, in my view, impossible to set into law. It attempts to set into rigid guidelines - of course, law, by its very nature, must be rigid - something that has so many permutations and combinations of particular circumstances that it is simply impossible to legislate.

Mr Speaker, many people who have spoken on this issue have some absolutely amazing stories that would make anybody believe that voluntary euthanasia legislation must be enacted. We have heard how relatives have died in circumstances that are simply unacceptable. That does not necessarily lead though to this sort of legislation. What it should lead to - I think it has in the ACT and in other parts of Australia - is a much better approach and a more holistic approach to handling the terminal phases of terminal illnesses of people who are living and dying with lots of pain.

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