Flurry of changes on agenda as VAD vote looms

Some last-ditch changes to proposed voluntary assisted dying legislation are on the cards including better protection for those who object.

Queensland MPs will be lobbied to change Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation to give greater protection to doctors and nurses who conscientiously object, in a last-ditch plea for amendments after the Bill’s passage was recommended.

The landmark Bill is set to be voted on within weeks, with a mammoth 327-page report by the Health and Environment Committee recommending it pass next month.

More than 6000 submissions were made to the inquiry “indicating support for the introduction of voluntary assisted dying legislation”, the report said.

But half of the committee – the LNP’s Rob Molhoek and Mark Robinson and One Nation’s Stephen Andrew – issued their own statements of reservation.

Mirani MP Stephen Andrew. Picture: Zizi Averill

Under the scheme, an adult with decision-making capacity and who is suffering permanent, intolerable physical or mental pain can voluntarily choose to take a deadly substance if they are suffering a terminal illness that is expected to kill them in the following 12 months.

Doctors would be trained to assess requests for signs of coercion and abuse and cannot sign off on VAD if they have any concerns.

Faith-based organisations and others will have the right not to provide services, but must allow VAD to be provided at their premises if the patient is too unwell to be moved – a provision not in other schemes that has angered many who do not want to invite in non-accredited doctors to witness VAD on their patients.

Faith-based organisations and others will have the right not to provide services, but must allow VAD to be provided at their premises if the patient is too unwell to be moved.

A group of private hospital heads and physicians, including Queenslander of the Year and disability advocate Dr Dinesh Panipala, will now hold a parliamentary briefing for all MPs on October 30 raising continuing concerns around that provision.

Saint Vincent’s Health Australia chief executive Toby Hall said Queensland’s Bill was the “most radical” in the world and there had been no problems with Victoria’s VAD scheme – where a person has to move to a premises offering VAD – that suggested any need for a different approach in Queensland.

“It would be like me going into a vegan restaurant and taking in steak and chips and sitting down in the middle of a restaurant and starting to eat,” he said.

“People would be horrified.”

David Crisafulli, the Liberal National Party and leader. Photo: Steve Pohlner

Meanwhile, LNP leader David Crisafulli, who still hasn’t revealed his vote, vowed to read the committee report in detail and has asked his MPs to read “every page” of the Bill.

The committee recommended the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions issue urgent new guidelines declaring anyone acting under the state’s VAD laws would not be prosecuted from their potential January 1, 2023 start date.

It also recommended the Commonwealth amend the Criminal Code Act to ensure VAD is not considered suicide.