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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (26 February) . . Page.. 431 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, my concern in this area, as I have often said, is that people say, "Look, we simply cannot allow people to die in pain. We cannot allow people to die with no quality of life". The other side of that question is this: Is it all right to require people to live when their quality of life is not up to speed? Is it all right for people to have to live with pain? This Bill talks about only the terminal phase of a terminal illness. Assuming that we argue that people in a terminal phase of a terminal illness, whose quality of life is not up to the standards that they believe they should have, have a right to be assisted to die, what about all those people who are not in the terminal phase of a terminal illness, are living with pain but are in no imminent danger of dying and whose quality of life is not acceptable? Mr Speaker, these are the sorts of lines that I personally have a large amount of trouble drawing. For that reason, I believe that to set this particular issue into black-letter law is very difficult.

Earlier and in previous debates I said that for me the difference between our previous legislation, the Medical Treatment Act, and this Bill is that it changes the issue of intent significantly. In fact, there is a total change of approach. I support, and have supported in this place, a patient's right to adequate pain relief. I have no problems with pain relief being given, even if the dose of that pain relief is likely to bring forward death, if the intent of giving that pain relief is to do exactly that - to create a situation where the patient's pain is diminished or got rid of totally. The moment that same dose of that same drug is given to kill somebody, to terminate their life, I personally, as a health professional, have an enormous problem. Even though the dose is the same, the intent is totally different.

When Mr Moore and I sat on the committee that looked at this issue early in, I think, the last Assembly, it was very interesting to me to see how often this issue of intent came up. There is an absolutely fundamental difference, Mr Speaker, between intending to keep a patient comfortable, intending to relieve a patient's pain, intending to improve the quality of life of a patient, and, on the other hand, intending to terminate that patient's life. It is a line over which I personally cannot go. It is also true, as I said earlier, that there is difficulty in drawing that line to determine the terminal phase of a terminal illness and determine when it would be all right for active euthanasia to occur.

I accept that Mr Moore has lots of safeguards in this legislation, Mr Speaker. I think Mr Moore has done an enormous amount of work in an attempt to overcome all of those issues that tend to slip through, to try to close all of the loopholes; but the reality is that you cannot close all of the loopholes in this area. I believe strongly, Mr Speaker, that the Medical Treatment Act that we passed in this place could do with some tightening up. Mr Moore knows that I believe that. I believe that patients do have a right to adequate pain relief. I believe that patients do have a right to die with as much dignity as possible. But I do not believe that we can sanction a situation where a person assists in terminating the life of another individual.

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