Page 4606 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 27 November 2019
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to their communities. The federal parliament should not be in the business of limiting the rights of some Australian citizens based simply on their postcodes.
In the lead-up to the Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill 2015 being considered by the Senate, the ACT and NT governments, and indeed parliaments, worked closely together to demand that federal politicians address the discrimination that exists between territories and states in relation to legislative rights. Sadly, again by the narrowest of margins, we were unsuccessful on that occasion.
It seems that some members of the Senate are unable to distinguish between their own personal views on social issues and the rights that nearly three-quarters of a million Australians who live in territories have to effective self-government. If the bill had passed the Senate and gone through to the house and been successful there, Canberrans would have had returned to them their right to determine their own legislation on a range of important issues.
As Ms Cheyne has indicated, this is a fight that we will continue. We would hope that every member of the Assembly, no matter what their personal views on a particular social issue may be, would support Canberrans’ right to full determination, in exactly the same way as those rights are enjoyed by Victorians, Queenslanders, New South Welshmen, Tasmanians, South Australians and West Australians.
In response to the comments from the Leader of the Opposition: how many states have to pass voluntary assisted dying legislation before the absolute absurdity of the territories being prevented from considering such legislation becomes clear? How many states have to pass those laws before our situation becomes absolutely absurd, to the point where even those who are opposed to voluntary euthanasia would recognise that there cannot be only two parts of Australia whose democratically elected parliaments cannot even consider the issue?
There might have been an argument, when the Northern Territory moved on this question in the last century, that maybe the territories should not be the first to move on this question, but the way things stand at the moment, we will end up being the last, if we are allowed at all. If Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania all pass laws that will allow voluntary assisted dying, and we have a majority of Australian states and a majority of the population who have access to such legal means, it does beg the question: why would the territories be barred from legislating? Undoubtedly, as each state progresses on this issue and more states legislate, we will see the momentum for change build. I thank Ms Cheyne for her motion today. (Time expired.)
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.03): By now, everyone here will know what the response of the ACT Greens will be to a motion calling for recognition of territory rights. Clearly, we support territory rights; we always have and always will. It is a shame that there has been no resolution and that this is still an issue that we need to debate in the Assembly.
The matter has been debated previously in this Assembly and it is a real pity that it has had to be brought on again for debate. I would like to say somewhat cheekily that
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