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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (26 February) . . Page.. 441 ..

MS HORODNY (11.35): Mr Speaker, 14 of us had this debate back in November 1995, and we have since been joined by three newer members to this Assembly who were not part of that debate and whose views on this matter are not yet clear. In November 1995, we had an in-principle debate, which I must say was very respectful of all the views presented. It was good that people did not interject and that we heard all views on the matter with great respect. Since that time there has been a new Bill drawn up with, I think, most of the amendments that Ms Tucker and I had worked on but which we were not able to discuss at that time because we were looking at the Bill only in principle.

I believe that the amendments that have been included in this Bill improve the safeguards immensely. They include such things as ensuring that the patient is of sound mind, that the medical practitioner is very familiar with the history of the patient and that the medical practitioner keeps very good records of information given to the patient on their choice in relation to palliative care. Also, a comprehensive report is to be prepared by the coroner to present to the Attorney-General, and the cooling-off period has been increased from 24 hours to 72 hours.

The commencement of the Bill will be no sooner than in three months' time. We originally proposed six months, but we have had discussions with Mr Moore about that and have agreed that three months is quite appropriate. The reason for having that minimum period was to allow for better awareness and education in the community regarding the precise details of this Bill, if it were to pass, so that people would be fully and properly aware of what is included in this Bill and what is not included and what their rights and responsibilities are, and also to allow for adequate training of medical practitioners. Another amendment that was included was the review of the whole legislation after two coroners reports have been presented. That is probably after a couple of years.

I noticed in the Canberra Times on 15 February an article written by Helen Verlander, who apparently is a staff member of Kevin Andrews's. She has written a quite detailed article explaining how, in her view, women would be more attracted to euthanasia, and earlier, and for reasons very different from those of men. She goes on to detail many instances of euthanasia being performed - mostly cases in America - where the euthanasia has clearly been abused. But I believe that this article actually adds further weight to the legislation that is being presented today. I believe that the legislation, in fact, would ensure that such cases of abuse as are detailed in this article do not occur. So, it is interesting to read the article and it is also interesting to realise that Ms Verlander has a very different agenda in mind.

There are interesting parallels, I believe, between this debate that we are having on euthanasia and the debate on the heroin trial. I believe that, in both debates and in both issues, there is a situation of abuse going on within our society, within the community, and in both cases there are proposals to regulate illegal activities and to restore some level of confidence in those activities and in the professions that are involved. In both cases, we have sectors of the community and politicians who choose to bury their heads in the sand, to ignore the reality, to ignore the potential to improve on the situation that exists. Instead, what we see is that strong personal views are being imposed in a situation where, I believe, the issue of community good should override that of people's personal views.

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