Voluntary assisted dying bill on cards for WA

Doctors are against it, but the WA government will press ahead with voluntary euthanasia legislation.

Western Australia will become the second state after Victoria to introduce voluntary assisted dying legislation, after the McGowan Labor government announced plans to bring in a bill by mid-next year to legalise end-of-life options for adults with a terminal illness.

Labor members will be ­offered a conscience vote on the government bill, which will be introduced by Health Minister Roger Cook. It follows a joint ­select committee report in ­August recommending voluntary assisted dying should be an option in WA for people with “grievous and irremediable suffering”.

Mr Cook said an expert panel would help draft the bill, headed by former WA governor and end-of-life option advocate Malcolm McCusker QC. “They will be responsible for putting ­together the best bill possible.”

He said the issue raised passionate views and the bill was likely to have a difficult passage through parliament. “But I think there are very real prospects of this legislation passing.”

Mr McCusker said his mother and several close friends had died an “unnecessarily protracted death”. But he said he was more mindful of the fact that 85 per cent of West Australians were in support of voluntary ­assisted dying.

The 10-person panel, which consists of palliative care ­experts, health consumer representatives and a disability advocate, will examine models from other countries, he said. “We are looking at the Victorian model but we will not follow it slav­ishly,” he said, adding that the state’s large indigenous population was an example of different factors faced by the panel.

AMA state president Omar Khorshid said he didn’t accept that assisted dying laws were inevitable and he believed the ­select committee’s favourable report had been “too one-sided”.

“We believe the new panel should look more broadly, ­engage with the right people and come up with the right legislation,” he said.

“If it’s bad legislation, the AMA and many other people will be fighting very hard against a regime that could be dangerous and could allow unlawful deaths in Western Australia.

“It’s a fundamental change in the way end-of-life is dealt with in WA. But it’s no surprise that the government had decided to move forward.”