NSW assisted dying laws fail in parliament

JUST one vote was enough to see a controversial euthanasia bill fail to become law.

Dying with Dignity NSW supporters are seen outside state parliament in Sydney. Picture: AAP Image/Ben Rushton.

A VOLUNTARY euthanasia bill has been voted down by just one vote after a marathon late night sitting in the NSW upper house, but the “fight isn’t over” yet, backers of a law change have said.

The parliamentary vote came at the end of an emotional day on Thursday as MPs made pleas for and against the draft bill, which was eventually defeated by 20 votes to 19.

Nationals MP Trevor Khan introduced the private members’ bill, which would have provided patients 25 years or older, whose deaths are imminent and are in severe pain, a choice to end their lives.

“(We’ll) never give up the fight,” an “exhausted” and “disappointed” Mr Khan told AAP on Friday.

Dying with Dignity NSW supporters are seen outside state parliament in Sydney, Picture: AAP Image/Ben Rushton.

City of Sydney Labor Councillor, Linda Scott, whose father is terminally ill, said to families in the same situation as hers, a law change was “urgent”.

“I am incredibly disappointed to see the bill defeated today. Voluntary assisted dying is about giving people choice over their life and death.

“My beloved father won’t have a legal choice. I’m committed to keep fighting for voluntary assisted dying so others in the future have access to choices my family now will not,” she said.

Mr Khan said, “You’ve just got to pick yourself up and look at how you move forward otherwise you’re not doing the right thing by the people you’re trying to help,” he said. “We knew it would be close — it was a matter of where some of the undecided fell — and they didn’t all fall the way we wanted them to.” He said most criticisms of the bill during the debate were on a “philosophical basis” as opposed to the structure of the bill.

Nationals MLC Trevor Khan presents his Assisted Dying Bill to the Legislative Council at the NSW State Parliament Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas.

“We will look at the bill to see if there are any improvements,” Mr Khan said, noting he would watch what happens in Victoria where MPs are also in the middle of a marathon debate over the voluntary assisted dying laws. Mr Khan said the Parliamentary Working Group on Assisted Dying would not be folding up.

“We’ve put so much effort in now, so many people who’ve relied upon it that we’ll continue.” He said it was a time to “regroup” before reintroducing another draft bill before the next state election in March 2019.

“(We will) go back and see if there’s anything different we could have done.” However, even if the proposed legislation had passed the upper house, it likely would have failed in the lower house where coalition Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Labor Opposition Leader Luke Foley have previously stated their opposition to any such legislation.

Outside parliament on Thursday morning, supporters and opponents rallied in the hope of influencing MPs.

Sheena Goodwin, 68, spoke of the agony she’s witnessed as a registered nurse, given palliative care is not always available.

But 73-year-old Martin Burrows, from northwest Sydney, says the final few weeks he and his children spent with his wife as she died of cancer were precious. He argued there must be a better way to deal with painful deaths than “a bill for suicide”.