Euthanasia: Assisted dying figures alarming, Labor MP Marlene Kairouz says

Labor frontbencher has concerns about the number of people ‘committing suicide’ under Victoria’s controversial laws.

Labor MP Marlene Kairouz. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Victorian Labor frontbencher Marlene Kairouz says she is deeply concerned about the number of people “committing suicide” under the Andrews government's voluntary assisted dying legislation following revelations yesterday that more than 50 people ended their lives under the scheme between June and December.

The Consumer Affairs Minister was one of five lower house Labor MPs who exercised a conscience vote and opposed Labor’s legislation in 2017.

The voluntary assisted dying review board’s inaugural six-monthly report, tabled in state parliament on Wednesday, found 52 people had ended their lives between June 19 and December 31, 2019, with 81 obtaining permits to have lethal drugs administered.

Ms Kairouz said the Andrews government was otherwise working hard to lower suicide rates across the community.

“We have a Minister for Mental Health who is doing some really wonderful work to lower the suicide rates,” she said.

“It’d be no surprise to anybody that I have some concerns about the number of people who are taking their lives (under the voluntary assisted dying scheme).

Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said he was concerned about the administrative errors revealed in the report, which revealed “83% of cases required forms to be returned for clarification or provision of missing eligibility information”.

The report also stated that 19 applications for voluntary assisted dying permits had been withdrawn, for reasons including “administrative error or confirmation of death by means other than voluntary assisted dying”.

“I’m very interested to find out, what are those administrative errors?” Mr O’Brien said.

“It’s supposed to be a very tightly safeguarded process, and you’re supposed to have gone through two checks with doctors before you can access it, so I’m just interested in, given that the term I think was ‘administrative error’ that was used in the report, I’m just interested in working out, how can you have administrative errors when it comes to a scheme that’s about euthanasia?”

Mr O’Brien said a scheme which could result in wrongful deaths if not administered properly needed to be “as close to 100 per cent safe as possible”.

“Clearly that’s not happening at the moment, so while a number of people have taken advantage of the opportunity that the scheme provides, you can’t afford to get the detail wrong, you can’t afford for the safeguards to be failing, and I think the government needs to explain how these errors occurred, and what’s going to be done to make sure they’re not repeated.”

The opposition does not oppose voluntary assisted dying, on the basis that the legislation passed parliament in 2017 following a conscience vote which saw both Labor and the Coalition internally divided.

The bill passed the lower house 47 votes to 37, and the upper house 22 votes to 18, with Deputy Premier James Merlino a notable opponent.