How Liz Holmes’ dying wish sparked a mission to restore the NT’s rights to decide on voluntary assisted dying

LIZ Holmes would have accessed voluntary assisted dying in the NT if it was available. Now her daughter is fighting to fulfil her dying wish

Liz Holmes' daughter Sharon Cramp-Oliver and Ms Cramp-Oliver's partner Spud Thomas at their Territory home. Picture: Supplied.

“WHEN you see a happy pigeon that will be me,” Liz Holmes told her daughter as she prepared to end her own life after enduring more than two decades of physical pain.

Ms Holmes, a devoted mother-of-three and woman of great achievement, could have accessed euthanasia here in the NT surrounded by loved ones had it been available in 2017.

She was 77.

Now her daughter Sharon Cramp-Oliver is fighting to fulfil her mother’s dying wish - for Territorians to be given the option to bring back voluntary assisted dying.

MORE RELATED NEWS

Territorians deserve same rights that 97 per cent of Australians already enjoy

Convincing govt colleagues to restore Territory rights a challenge Senator says, as Attorney-General refuses to budge yet again

NT Federal politicians support Territorians being given back the right to choose

Liz Cramp, pictured here in approximately 1982. Picture: Supplied

Liz Holmes, pictured here at her 60th birthday. Picture: Supplied

“Have it happen again! You of all people can do it,” Ms Holmes wrote in the final text message she would ever send to her eldest daughter.

In July 1996 voluntary assisted dying was legal in the Territory, the first jurisdiction to make it so.

By March 1997 the then Australian government passed laws to restrict territories from making laws on euthanasia.

Those laws, despite a growing chorus of Australians demanding our federal parliamentarians return the territories rights to choose, remain in place today.

Liz Holmes' daughter Sharon Cramp-Oliver and Ms Cramp-Oliver's partner Spud Thomas at their Territory home. Picture: Supplied.

Liz Cramp's dog Katie, who she loved dearly. Picture: Supplied

The NT News this week launched a campaign to push the Commonwealth to repeal the bill that has stood for 24 years.

“I’m an Australian citizen, so is (my partner) Spud, so is everybody else in the Territory … we should have exactly the same rights … to take euthanasia into parliament to be discussed and maybe voted on,” Ms Cramp-Oliver said.

“We should have that right, it’s simple.”

Ms Holmes broke her back when she was 53 and would soon endure two hip replacements amid a 12-year battle against breast cancer.

HOT NEW DEAL: Read everything for 28 days for just $1

By the end, she had become a hermit in her Tamworth, NSW home. Once a fiercely independent woman who volunteered as a Lifeline hotline counsellor for 18 years, toward the end she could not drive, walk her beloved dog Katie, nor bear the pain and burden she feared she would inflict on her family. “We all should be able to choose when we die, so with great courage and no cowardice I go to God,” Ms Holmes wrote in the letter she left for her family and friends.