Senator Zed Seselja has hit back at Labor Senator Katy Gallagher, whose petition this week accused him of undemocratically blocking a bill to let Territories legislate on euthanasia.
“Senator Gallagher is playing politics with an issue of life and death where there are differing views within the community,” Senator Seselja said.
Senator Gallagher had claimed Senator Seselja “stood in the way of restoring the ACT Legislative Assembly’s right to make laws for its own citizens”.
Northern Territory Liberal Senator Dr Sam McMahon has not included the ACT in her private members’ bill because, she said, Senator Seselja “wasn’t keen”. “If Zed’s not interested and not going to support it, I don’t think it would be worth doing. I’d be better off just doing it for the NT.”
Senator Gallagher had said Senator Seselja was only in politics for himself, and put his “conservative personal views” ahead of “the democratic rights” of Canberrans.
Senator Seselja retorted: “She is lying when she claims that I have stood in the way of any Senator putting forward a bill which includes the ACT. I have simply been consistent in the position I have taken to every election I have contested.”
The Liberal Senator has been an outspoken opponent of euthanasia for years, arguing that assisted dying was an “ethical threshold” that should not be crossed.
He is concerned that vulnerable people would be pressured into suicide (as they have in the USA); and that children with incurable diseases, alcoholics and drug addicts, people with dementia, the mentally ill and the disabled could all be killed with the approval of the State (as they have in some European countries). He worries that governments might find it easier and cheaper to euthanise people considered a burden on society rather than to properly fund palliative care, which would offer a dignified death.
“If Senator Gallagher is as committed to legalising euthanasia as she claims, there is nothing preventing her from introducing a bill to the Senate, as all senators are entitled to do.”
Senator Seselja has said that he considers euthanasia a matter for a conscience vote, which he maintains the Senate and Parliament have already considered and rejected. However, he might be willing to discuss or consider giving the ACT broader territory rights, if euthanasia were part of a package of legislation and not the principal issue.
Meanwhile, Senator Gallagher’s petition to restore Territory rights had received nearly 1,600 votes by Friday afternoon.
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