Euthanasia bill: Malcolm Turnbull’s rare conservative win

For once, the PM’s personal views and those of hisconservative colleagues and Liberal Party members have aligned.

PM Malcolm Turnbull in Question Time in the House of Representatives Chamber at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

Malcolm Turnbull has had a rare conservative win in politics.

For once, the Prime Minister’s personal views and those of his conservative colleagues and Liberal Party members have aligned — so too has his political interest with groups with whom he has been at loggerheads.

Against the odds and expectations the euthanasia bill in the Senate was defeated.

The Senate’s rejection of the euthanasia bill which would have turned over the so-called Andrews’ bill which confirmed territory legislatures did not have the same rights as sovereign states and could not make life and death decisions- is a win for Turnbull.

It began badly for Turnbull — who is strongly against euthanasia personally- when Liberal Democrats’ Senator, David Leyonhjelm, said there was a deal with the Liberal leader to allow a vote on euthanasia in return for his previous support on the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Turnbull was pilloried for handing away a conscience issue in return for an economic gain and Leyonhjelm says he broke his word and deserves to be “blackmailed” for doing so.

But the real political threat to Turnbull — given his standing with conservative Coalition supporters is zero — was that in the key Parliamentary sitting week to discuss his pivotal energy policy he was about to be swamped with an emotive, time consuming debate on euthanasia.

Either that or he would have had to exercise his authority and quash the possibility of a debate.

Instead, after interventions by conservative Labor Senators, successful lobbyists pointing to doctors’ fears about assisted-killing and hard line resistance from conservative Coalition Senators, as well as some ministerial discipline, the bill was defeated on the floor of the Senate.

Turnbull doesn’t even face the task of killing off the debate in the House of Representatives.

It’s a conservative victory that coincides with his own views and those of so many of his colleagues and party supporters, rare indeed.

It’s also a demonstration of what can be achieved when Turnbull works with the conservatives in terms of politics and philosophy, not to mention the Catholics.