Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to be able to speak on this issue. This is probably the second time that I've indicated my support for people's right to die a dignified death and, on that basis, I support this bill.

The bill has four elements to it. The first is to reduce the extent of Commonwealth interference with the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. I take that as a correct statement. What this parliament did was interfere in the decision-making process of both of those territories.

The bill, secondly, is said to encourage competitive federalism—the process whereby each state enacts laws in competition with the others—thereby refining and improving law making. That's an assertion, I think, that has been made by Senator Leyonhjelm on this bill. I don't particularly support competitive federalism. Competitive federalism had a lot to answer for around this country in years past. It's been bad for the economy. It's been bad for productivity. I think competitive federalism is a nonsense in some aspects. So I don't support that proposition.

The third area is that it recognises the right of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory to legislate for assisted suicide in their respective jurisdictions. For the life of me, I can't understand why, if you give rights to these territories to make decisions—the decision about helping some of their constituents, or some of the citizens, in those territories—they should have second-class rights compared to the states. This is about ensuring that everyone, whether you reside in a state or in a territory, has got the same access to the law and the same access to rights—as we have everywhere else. That's an important part of this bill.

Fourthly, it ensures that the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, Northern Territory, is not automatically revivified, allowing the parliament of the Northern Territory to revisit the issue in a time and manner of its choosing. So we are not really here voting on what should happen in the Northern Territory. We are not voting on what should happen in the ACT. We are simply saying that they should have the same rights to make laws for their citizens that the states around the country have to make laws for their citizens. There should be no second-class citizens in this country.

I have been engaged in the removal of asbestos for many years, both as a union official and as a parliamentarian. I just think that, if you watch someone die an excruciatingly painful death from mesothelioma, that may change your views on how you deal with this issue. In fact, I have just come from the Parliamentary Group on Asbestos Related Disease. They are meeting as this debate is taking place. They are trying to stop asbestos being used around this country in a way that creates this excruciating death for an individual. When I indicated that I had to leave that meeting to come down here, two of the Queensland delegates to the meeting approached me and said that, only in the last 12 months, two of their members whom they were trying to assist to manage their asbestos disease, mesothelioma, have committed suicide.

I don't know if many people here have witnessed anyone dying of mesothelioma, but it is an absolutely vicious and terrible disease. You can, for about 12 months prior to your death, not be able to breathe effectively. It's been described to me as having a block of concrete on your chest, crushing your chest. Your body just disintegrates around you with the cancer. Both as a union official and a blue-collar worker, I have witnessed two of my close friends die of this. I worked at Liddell Power Station in the Hunter Valley for seven years. When I first worked there, very little concern was given to the question of asbestos exposure, but thankfully during that period of time, because of the activities and the strikes that unions engaged in—the refusal to work with asbestos—we ended up in a situation where we had checks and balances and proper controls over the exposure of workers to asbestos.

But there have been many, many workers in the power industry, in the maritime industry, in the building industry and in other industries who have been exposed to asbestos and ended up with mesothelioma. If you end up with mesothelioma, I'll tell you, you will want relief from what you are being put through. Not only is it a terrible, excruciating disease for the individual but it's terrible for the family to witness their loved ones ending up in the situation that they are in. So my views on this    have been certainly decided after watching my friends die in this terrible situation.

I had another good friend. He emigrated from Scotland in the same year as I did. In fact, we went to the equivalent of TAFE in Scotland together. We didn't work together. He worked in one job; I worked in another. But we had been friends for nearly 40 years in Australia. He ended up with pancreatic cancer. This was a tough guy. He still had his grandchildren before him. He had still a lot of life to lead. The pancreatic cancer meant that he was left lying in St Vincent's Hospital in nappies because he had no control over his bowels. He had no control over what was happening. He was medicated to the highest degree possible. I think that St Vincent's Hospital gave him the best palliative care they possibly could, but his was still an excruciatingly bad death. His family had indicated to me that they just wished there was something that could be done about it.

We heard earlier the contribution from Senator Hume, who raised the slippery-slope argument. If more people in Belgium are being saved from going through a horrible death, an excruciatingly painful death, I don't think that's a slippery slope. I think that's a good thing. I think that they should be saved from that. To simply look at statistics and say this is a slippery slope is something that I don't understand. I thought that argument would come up in this debate, because this debate has been in this place before, so I had a look at some of the academic analysis, rather than the material from religious organisations or atheist organisations. I thought I'd have a look at what the academics are saying about the situation in Belgium. There's a paper by Bernheim, Deschepper and Deliens that rejects the slippery-slope argument. These are academics actually looking at the statistics and how this is working and dealing with the issues. One of them is a medical oncologist, one of them is an anthropologist and the other is a medical sociologist, so they are trained to analyse these issues. They say the slippery-slope argument used in Belgium—they don't talk about anywhere else—has no merit. They say:

Palliative care and legalisation of euthanasia are widely viewed as antagonistic societal developments and causes.

They say they should not be, because euthanasia and palliative care can work together and do work together in Belgium. They say:

Belgium was the second country to legalise euthanasia but also has among the best developed palliative care—

in the world. It's not one thing or the other. You can access palliative care in Belgium, but if you end up like my friends ended up you can be put out of what is a miserable, terrible death. Many of the advocates for legalisation in Belgium actually worked in palliative care. They had seen that palliative care does not diminish the suffering of many people and they became advocates for euthanasia in Belgium. Bernheim, Deschepper and Deliens say:

The development of palliative care and the process of legalisation of euthanasia can be mutually reinforcing.

These are the academics who are working in this area and who have taken the time to actually sit down and look at what is happening in the country. They are not senators in Australia picking up some piece of information that they can run in here with and use to talk about slippery slopes. They say that argument is not correct, that it is not the situation.

So I am very strongly of the view that this legislation should be passed. What we have to remember once this legislation is passed is that there are no euthanasia laws existing in the ACT or in the Northern Territory. These are issues that will have to be debated in those parliaments, in the areas where they should be debated. The citizens of both the ACT and the Northern Territory will then be able to lobby their parliamentary representatives. They will be able to put their points of view. The churches will be able to put their points of view. Medical practitioners will be able to put their points of view. Families will be able to put their points of view. I think that's what democracy is all about.

Democracy was not properly effected when John Howard, in the parliament that he was in, denied the citizens of the ACT and the Northern Territory the same rights that exist for other jurisdictions. Some states have not passed any laws on euthanasia. Victoria recently has. I think it's inevitable that these laws will be passed around the country, and I think it's a good thing that these laws be passed. We would not subject animals to the agony and pain that victims of mesothelioma go through after they contract that disease. They are treated with a more commonsense approach than some of these victims of mesothelioma or pancreatic cancer are.

I take the view that we'll hear all the arguments here. This is a matter of common sense and it will come down to the individuals. Individuals will make choices. Individuals will make that choice on the basis of checks and balances within the legislation that is passed within the ACT or within the Northern Territory.

The reason there is no detail about any legislation on euthanasia in this bill is that we've got no power to determine what happens in the ACT or the Northern Territory on this issue. We've got no power to determine that euthanasia should apply across the country, but we do have the power to remove the restrictions on the ACT and the Northern Territory that were put in place by John Howard and his government some years ago on the basis of what were seen to be strong arguments. Many members had strong views on this. They took a view and that was the decision the parliament made, but things have moved on, just as they have moved on in a whole range of areas. Things have moved on since the days of John Howard, his conservatism and his approach on these issues.

I think we should listen to academics, doctors, families and the individuals who are stricken by terrible disease and who want to end their life. We should stop having the position that people with incurable disease should be forced to suffer. Their families are forced to suffer the ignominy of watching them lying in a nappy, with no control over their bodily functions, while dying an excruciatingly painful death. We need to change this approach.

I think things have changed. What I've seen recently is that many more people accept the proposition that people should have the right to choose how they die when they have these terrible diseases. What we've seen recently is that, when the Australian public are asked about their views on this, overwhelmingly they have moved on from the days of the John Howard government and have come to the view that people should be able to make those choices, subject to the checks and balances that are put in place to ensure that the person suffering is making the decision and that they have got a terminal illness that they will not recover from.

These are big issues that should be before the states and territories. These issues cannot be debated at the territorial parliamentary level unless we make this decision to restore to the territories the rights that states have. What I'm arguing here is that this bill does no more than restore their rights. The debate about whether legislation should be passed in the ACT or the Northern Territory and whether it should happen there is a matter for Territorians and Canberrans. They're the people who, through their territorial assemblies, should make those decisions. That's the argument that I put forward here. I think that if they want to bring those issues before their parliaments, it is now time for us to allow those parliaments to deal with them in the way they see fit.

I think everyone knows that palliative care is extremely important. Palliative care is fantastic to help people die in a painless way, as much as they possibly can. In Belgium, the people who administer palliative care have got another option, under certain checks and balances, and that is: if the individual has indicated that they want to end their life—perhaps because their illness is so excruciatingly bad for them—then they have got the right to end their life with dignity. What I'm arguing for here is the right of the individual to make the choice, the capacity for checks and balances to be put in place, and the rights of both the Northern Territory and the ACT to be able to pass legislation after consulting properly with the electorate. I think there should not be two rights in this country: one for those who, by chance, just happen to live in a territory and another for those who live in a state. You could move from New South Wales to the ACT and your rights would change. I think that's a nonsense. I take the view that this is the right thing to do. I don't agree with much that Senator Leyonhjelm brings before this parliament but I certainly agree with this, and I commend him for bringing this forward.