Conscience vote on euthanasia in Northern Territory and ACT
A conscience vote to allow the Northern Territory and ACT to legalise voluntary euthanasia could be put before federal parliament within weeks.
A conscience vote to allow the Northern Territory and ACT to legalise voluntary euthanasia could be put before federal parliament within weeks, as Health Minister Mark Butler backed overturning a ban imposed 25 years ago.
Local Government and Territories Minister Kristy McBain said she expected her colleagues from Canberra and the NT would bring forward a territory rights bill “as soon as possible”.
While timing is not finalised, legislation could be presented as early as the first sitting fortnight that begins on July 26.
The NT became the first jurisdiction in the world to legalise voluntary euthanasia in 1995 and in the nine months the legislation was in force, four people used it to end their lives.
In 1996, former Liberal MP Kevin Andrews introduced a private member’s bill in federal parliament, passed in 1997, which stripped the territories of the right to legalise euthanasia.
Mr Butler, a close ally of Anthony Albanese and a Labor Left heavyweight, said he supported “properly regulated and constructed” voluntary assisted dying laws and the rights of territory parliaments to legislate on matters that impacted people’s health.
“The interference in that aspect of the territory parliaments’ powers is overreach by the commonwealth,” he said.
“It’s been extraordinary the speed with which VAD or voluntary assisted dying laws have passed through so many state parliaments over the last couple of years and I think broadly they’ve been well constructed, based on good consultation with obviously the community and patient groups but also with clinicians and in their early days seem to be working very effectively.”
The move is likely to deeply divide MPs in both chambers but the 47th parliament is significantly more favourable towards the reforms than when the issue was last voted on in 2018.
“When I took on the role of Minister for Territories, I made it clear I will work collaboratively with ACT and NT representatives, and I will assist their efforts in passing a bill to give governments in the ACT and Northern Territory the power to shape their own legislation around assisted dying,” Ms McBain, a former mayor of the NSW coastal town of Bega, told The Australian.
“Territory rights, particularly in regards to voluntary assisted dying, have been a priority for Labor’s ACT and NT members and senators for a number of years now.”
Momentum to give the territories the power to make their own laws has been growing as every state around the country legalised voluntary euthanasia.
NSW became the last state to pass voluntary assisted dying laws, two decades after it was first debated.
The Senate narrowly defeated a private senator’s bill 36-34 in 2018 that gave the ACT and NT the autonomy to make their own voluntary assisted dying laws.
The bill, sponsored by former Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm, never made its way to the lower house, where Labor now has a majority of 77 seats. The Coalition has 58. There are 16 MPs on the crossbench, which is mostly progressive.
Legislation is likely to receive majority support in the House of Representatives in the new parliament but a vote could still be tight in the Senate.
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