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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (5 November) . . Page.. 3660 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The Assembly would be endorsing the principles of CIR, which is certainly not what we want to do at this stage. The Greens' view on CIR is that we support the extension of mechanisms for community participation in Assembly decision-making, including the use of CIR, only if these other mechanisms have been implemented very carefully to ensure that the disadvantages of CIR are fully overcome.

In particular, CIRs oversimplify complex issues to a yes/no vote by a public who may not have the expertise or information on which to consider all aspects of the issue, and minority groups may be discriminated against by the majority rule encouraged by CIRs. We are not prepared to support CIR legislation until a Bill of Rights is entrenched in the ACT, community right to know legislation and improved freedom of information legislation are passed and extensive community consultations processes are implemented. Democracy does not begin and end at election day.

The Greens will be supporting the other two Bills that we are dealing with in this cognate debate. The Medical Treatment (Amendment) Bill is about ensuring the right of a patient in a situation where they are experiencing pain and are in the terminal stage of a terminal illness. They will be able to determine for themselves whether or not that pain relief is actually succeeding. I think it is perfectly reasonable.

We will also support the other Bill that we are debating today, the Crimes (Assisted Suicide) Bill. I believe it is a quite legitimate strategy in terms of the rejection by the Federal Parliament of our right to introduce a compassionate response to the dilemma for people who are suffering a terminal phase of a terminal illness and who, indeed, are suffering to the degree where they no longer want to continue experiencing that condition. This Bill is another attempt to force, I believe, society, and the Federal Parliament in particular, to address this issue again. The community has made it quite clear many times that they believe it should be the right of someone who is in a terminal phase of a terminal illness to voluntarily decide that their suffering should end.

In the initial debate on euthanasia, I made the point that it had been a very difficult decision for both Ms Horodny and me; that I had read a large amount of the literature that was provided by all sides of the argument; and that I was finally convinced that, as already life and death decisions are being made on a daily basis in our hospitals, this would actually bring about a greater accountability and a greater ensuring of patient rights than the current situation. As I said, we will be supporting the second and third Bills, but we will not be supporting the referendum Bill.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.32): I will be dealing with these three Bills differently. I might indicate that the Liberal Party's view about these three Bills is that they are matters of conscience and there is no party line that imposes a particular result on any of these three Bills. So, members may wish to speak for themselves on these three Bills.

For my part, let me say that I oppose the Euthanasia Referendum Bill, actually for much the same reasons as Mr Berry put forward. I disapprove of the decision made by the Commonwealth Parliament. I believe it is wrong to restrict the decision-making capacity of the people of the ACT via their duly elected Legislative Assembly on matters such

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