Page 992 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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and put on the agenda recommendations which will achieve change and improvement in end of life care.
The report includes one recommendation that a committee of the Assembly inquire into paediatric palliative care in the ACT—a matter of concern to the committee. The committee also recommends courses of action for the ACT government to ensure that national coordination of end of life care and related matters are pursued with the commonwealth and other jurisdictions. The committee’s report makes 24 recommendations. The committee’s inquiry encompasses careful consideration of a very wide range of factors, from the most fundamental of human moral issues regarding death and dying through to the importance of palliative care.
As chair I take this opportunity to thank all members of the committee for their collaborative approach in dealing with all submissions received, as well as evidence taken by witnesses, and in their deliberation to come up with this final report. I also thank the committee staff who worked on this report: Brianna McGill, Josephine Moa and Danton Leary as research officers, Lydia Chung as administrative support and Andrew Sneddon as secretary.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (3.49): I that note you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are also a member of this committee and may be speaking on this as well. I second the committee chair’s thanks to my fellow committee members and the secretariat. As Ms Cody noted, quite a few people were helping us with this. Even more than that, I thank the literally hundreds of people who responded to our call for submissions, in particular those individuals who gave evidence about the very distressing end of life circumstances in their families. I thank you for your courage and willingness to share.
I am disappointed that for those people who advocated for voluntary assisted dying we were not able to provide a pathway. I apologise to any of those who felt this committee would be able to provide that. I apologise to anyone to whom we gave false hope that we were not able to deliver on.
The timing of the inquiry was exquisite, with the Senate debating but not passing Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm’s legislation that would have revoked the laws which prevented us and the Northern Territory from making laws on voluntary assisted dying.
The question I am sure I will be asked is: why did we not make recommendations on voluntary assisted dying? There are a few reasons for that in my mind. Given that the Assembly cannot legislate on voluntary assisted dying, any legislation would presumably be done by a future Assembly. I have no doubt that any future Assembly would wish to have its own inquiry into what should happen in this area, if there is any legislation.
Also, there was not consensus amongst the committee as to what we would do with voluntary assisted dying, and you will see that when you read the report. However, I can say that a majority of committee members support the continuing work with the Northern Territory to lobby our federal government to give the territories the right to
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