The Senate’s decision last night to allow the ACT and the Northern Territory to legislate on voluntary assisted dying, after 25 years, is “a very significant moment for the Territories”, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said.
“Many people have campaigned to see the Andrews Bill overturned. It’s not the first attempt. It’s a lesson in persistence, and taking opportunities when they arise.”
The Andrews Bill – more formally, the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997 – was introduced by Liberal backbencher Kevin Andrews MP to repeal 1995 legislation that made the NT the first jurisdiction in Australia to permit voluntary assisted dying.
It inserted blocking clauses in both the ACT (Self-Government) Act 1988 and the NT (Self-Government) Act 1978 preventing the Territories’ assemblies from “mak[ing] laws permitting or having the effect of permitting (whether subject to conditions or not) the form of intentional killing of another called euthanasia (which includes mercy killing) or the assisting of a person to terminate his or her life”.
That bill has frustrated many in the ACT, who argue that it left them second-class citizens, denied the right to legislate for themselves. Labor MP Dr Andrew Leigh, for instance, moved twice in the last decade to scrap the Andrews ban and restore territory rights, but the then-Coalition government would not permit debate. ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury provided a submission to a Federal Senate Committee Inquiry into a Federal Greens Dying with Dignity Bill, calling for the repeal of the ‘Andrews Bill’. Labor MLA Tara Cheyne was appointed Human Rights Minister after the 2020 election, charged with advocating for the right to determine laws on voluntary assisted dying; she and the Northern Territory Attorney-General wrote to Federal politicians last year, saying the “stark inequity” between states and territories on the issue was “untenable and indefensible”.
In March last year, ACT Labor, Green, and Labor MLAs unanimously moved that the Federal Government restore Territory rights so the ACT could vote on voluntary assisted dying. But it was a controversial issue.
Dr Leigh, Senator Katy Gallagher, and other Labor politicians advocated for repealing the Andrews Bill; but former Liberal Senator Zed Seselja saw it as an “ethical threshold” that could not be crossed, and a violation of human rights. He was shocked that children with incurable diseases, and people with dementia, alcohol and drug addiction, mental illness, and disability had been euthanised in Belgium and the Netherlands. Similar concerns have been raised about Canada, where people have applied for euthanasia because they fear poverty or homelessness.
- ‘Playing politics with life and death’: Seselja responds to Gallagher (16th July 2021)
- Hundreds sign Gallagher’s petition against Seselja (15th July 2021)
- Zed vs. the rest: Senator Seselja alone in opposition to euthanasia (8th July 2021)
- MLAs unite for ACT right to legislate on euthanasia (31March 2021)
- ACT politicians say voting on euthanasia is a ‘democratic freedom’ (25 March 2021)
- ACT should have right to vote on euthanasia, politicians argue (5th March 2021)
In August, Luke Gosling OAM MP’s Restoring Territory Rights Bill, seconded by Alicia Payne MP, passed the House of Representatives, with 99 votes for and 37 against.
It then passed to the Senate, where Labor Senator Katy Gallagher and newly elected independent Senator David Pocock championed it. Senator Pocock argued the time had come to right a “long-running injustice that has seen people in the ACT and NT have fewer rights than people living in the states”.
- ‘Well past time’: Territory rights bill goes to parliament (1 August)
- Lower house supports territory rights (3 August)
“This is a really significant and historic moment and one that a lot of people have fought a long time to witness,” Senator Gallagher said. “I know how much the restoration of territory rights matters to Canberrans. It’s something I championed as Chief Minister, I fought for as a Senator, and am now really proud to have played a part in delivering as part of a Federal Labor Government.”
“Dignity, freedom and choice shouldn’t end at the borders we draw on a map,” Senator Pocock said. “We are all Australians, and we all deserve the same democratic rights.
“I’m glad we got it right in the Senate tonight during what was a very respectful debate and an emotional result.”
The last time a similar bill entered parliament, Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm’s Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill of 2018, it was defeated by only two votes (34 for to 36 against). At the time, only one state, Victoria, had passed laws allowing euthanasia; since then, all states have done so.
Ms Cheyne said it had been “bittersweet” to watch from the sidelines as other states legislated. The issue has occupied her for six years.
“There’s a case I’ve been thinking about quite a bit,” Ms Cheyne said. “In 2019, I visited some constituents of mine, friends of mine. They slid across the table to me a card from their friends in the ACT, and it said: ‘We’re sorry we couldn’t say goodbye to you personally, but we didn’t want to implicate you with ACT Policing or anybody else’.
“Those people had taken their own lives. I reflect on that often, that if voluntary assisted dying laws had been in place for those people, that they would then have been able to go at a time of their choosing in a gentle way and a way that would have been surrounded by their friends and their family.
“But because of us being banned, and what that then entails, meant they died alone; they died lonely deaths.
“I absolutely respect the decision that those people took, but I also reflect on those constituents of mine, and the feeling that they had of not being able to say goodbye to their friends and having no idea that this was even something that had been contemplated because no one wanted to be implicated. That weighs heavily on me. And I know that that story is not alone.”
For Senator Pocock, the need for territory rights was brought home by two stage four cancer patients, Samuel Whitsed and Kate Fisher.
- Father’s plight ignites ACT, NT euthanasia debate (5 September)
Those who helped loved ones out of pain and suffering have faced criminal charges. In 2019, as the ABC reported, Canberra man Neil O’Riordan helped his terminally ill partner, Penelope Blume, suffering from motor neurone disease, to die. “My wife wanted to die at home and at a time of her choosing,” Mr O’Riordan said. He was charged with aiding suicide; those charges were subsequently dropped.
But within two years, voluntary assisted dying will no longer be a crime in the ACT.
If the issue of a voluntary assisted dying law raises issues for you or your family, help is available: Lifeline (Call 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au) and Beyond Blue (Call 1300 22 4636 or beyond.blue.org.au)
