Kevin Andrews still firm on stopping euthanasia in the Northern Territory

THE man who led the push to quash the Northern Territory’s euthanasia laws says a bid to restore the NT’s right to legislate on this issue is premature

Kevin Andrews

THE man who led the push to quash the Northern Territory’s euthanasia laws says a bid to restore the NT’s right to legislate on this issue is premature.

“My position hasn’t changed on this,” Kevin Andrews said.

The Victorian Federal MP led a move by Canberra in 1997 to overturn the NT’s Rights of the Terminally Ill Act.

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The act had created the world’s first voluntary euthanasia laws.

But Mr Andrews, supported by Labor MP Tony Burke, introduced legislation into the federal Parliament that prevented Australian territories from legislating on assisted dying.

The Euthanasia Laws Act effectively made the NT’s euthanasia laws null and void.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner has now written to Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten asking that the NT be given back the right to create its own laws on euthanasia.

Mr Gunner’s letter came after Victoria’s lower house passed euthanasia legislation last month but it is yet to pass the upper house.

But Mr Andrews said it was too early to discuss whether laws relating to the Northern Territory should be changed.