Page 4601 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 27 November 2019
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which exclude the ACT from the power to make laws with respect to voluntary assisted dying;
(4) determines that the Commonwealth denying the ACT the freedom to debate and pass legislation that reflects the democratic will of the people it represents fundamentally undermines democratic principles; and
(5) calls on:
(a) the Federal Parliament to:
(i) resolve that no Australian citizen should be disadvantaged with respect to their democratic rights on the basis of where they live; and
(ii) remove subsections 23(1A) and (1B) from the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 (Cwlth); and
(b) all ACT Legislative Assembly party leaders to write to their federal counterparts before the end of 2019 requesting their commitment to remove subsections 23(1A) and (1B) from the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 (Cwlth) in 2020.
I rise today to formally reignite the efforts of this government to have subsections 23(1A) and (1B) removed from the Australian Capital Territory Self-Government Act 1988. These subsections in federal legislation exclude the ACT—our jurisdiction and our home—from the power to make laws with respect to voluntary assisted dying. These subsections deny our community and our parliament—this place—the freedom to debate and pass legislation that reflects the democratic will of the people. These subsections persist unfairly, unreasonably and untenably.
Madam Speaker, you will keenly remember the last time we discussed this issue in this place. The Senate had voted on whether to restore our rights and the rights of the Northern Territory. They voted on giving us, the territories, the same rights as every Australian citizen who happens to live in a state. That vote was lost, 34 to 32, just a couple of votes in it.
When we last discussed this issue in this place we were hurting. We were hurting as a government but also as a parliament with our rights being ignored. We were also making history. At a time when all our chips were down, we stood up and we fought back remonstrating with the Senate, the first remonstrance to ever occur in the history of this Assembly, and to date the only one.
At that time, I concluded my speech on the subject with, “We will not give up. This does not end here.” I made that promise to the people of the ACT, to this parliament, and to myself, and we did not drop the issue. We have moved motions at conferences, tabled a committee report into end of life choices and continued the discussions in our communities.
I acknowledge in the gallery the presence of members of our community. I see a number of people who submitted to and appeared before the end of life choices committee inquiry. But, importantly, I see people for whom this matters. That is what it is about. Since the Senate disappointed us last year we have not shrunk away. In fact, numbers have grown. The numbers of people who want this issue resolved have
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