Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for opportunity to speak on this bill, the Ensuring Northern Territory Rights Bill 2021. I have to start by responding to some of the contribution by Senator Gallagher, who right throughout this debate, I think, has sought to make it a personality issue, and particularly some of the mistruths and untruths she has peddled in relation to where we are today.

The very fact that we are debating this bill today undermines one of the key arguments that Senator Gallagher has been making throughout this time, and that is that somehow I have been blocking debate on this bill in the Senate. It's not true, and the fact that it was able to be brought on today is another example of that. Senator Gallagher has been making the argument that she has been committed to this issue and fighting for this issue. But you wonder how much she wants to use it as a political wedge rather than progress the issue, because there have been a lot of Labor slots for private senator's business in the last three years, and I'm not aware that, during all of that time, Senator Katy Gallagher, as Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate, took even one of those slots to introduce her own bill or to bring on another bill and to have a debate. If you were fair dinkum about this, after we dealt with this issue in 2018, you may have actually brought forward your own bill. Senator Gallagher and I have both been very clear about our positions on this issue, but she has not sought to progress the issue; what she has sought to do instead is misrepresent my position and, indeed, misrepresent Senator McMahon's position in quite a deliberate way.

I note the petition which I think was tabled the other day by Senator Gallagher, and it contained clear falsehoods—falsehoods that she was alerted to well before she tabled the petition. In the petition, she claimed that I was deliberately blocking one of my own coalition colleagues from including the ACT in a private senator's bill to restore Territory rights. That's untrue. If she was in any doubt about whether that was untrue, Senator McMahon actually wrote to her, soon after Senator Gallagher had made public that petition, to alert her to the fact that it was incorrect. She ignored it and she tabled a false petition, which she knew to be false. Senator McMahon wrote to Senator Gallagher on 19 July in relation to the issue of euthanasia, amongst other things, and said: 'In your public commentary, as well as in a petition you have launched, you claim that Senator Zed Seselja deliberately blocked me from including the ACT in my proposed legislation. I wish to clarify to you that your assertions are completely false, baseless and incorrect.'

She goes on to emphatically state that what Senator Gallagher is putting in her petition to the people of the ACT—getting them to sign on to a false petition—is incorrect. She completely misrepresents me and also Senator McMahon and seeks to use her as a wedge for her political argument here in the ACT. As I say, not only has she had the opportunity over the last three years to bring forward a bill on this for the Senate to debate and hasn't devoted one minute to it, but she then goes on to misrepresent me and Senator McMahon in relation to the nature of Senator McMahon's bill. The very fact that we are having this debate puts a lie to it, but the fact that Senator Gallagher has only sought to bring on debate right at the last minute, not having used the last three years, demonstrates the political motivations.

The other point I would make is that, for a long time, when I have got up and said I have a position against euthanasia, I've been told, 'These bills are not about euthanasia; they are about territory rights.' That's what we've consistently been told. When Senator McMahon brought forward a bill that actually dealt with issues—including euthanasia but also other issues—of territory rights, what did the Labor Party say in relation to that? The Labor Party said they would not be supporting that bill. Let's just be clear: the Labor Party's position is not to support territory rights; it's to support euthanasia. If that's the case, bring that debate on—and that's part of the debate we're going to be having—but don't pretend that you actually care about territory rights. When Senator McMahon sought to broaden the issues and deal with other issues that she felt needed to be dealt with for the Northern Territory, the Labor Party, including Northern Territory Labor senators, said they wouldn't support it. Do you support territory rights, or do you just support voluntary euthanasia? If the latter is the case, that's fine, but let's be clear about what debate we're having. There needs to be some honesty when we're having these discussions. Senator McMahon brought forward her bill in good faith. Now we understand it's going to be amended, and that will bring forward a conscience vote where we deal with the issue of euthanasia.

I've put a lot of things on the record, including in the lead-up to the last election. This was last debated in the Senate in 2018, I believe, a few months out from the 2019 election. I won't repeat all of the words that I used and all of the points that I made during that debate, but there are a number of important points as we look at this issue. Just finally on the issue of territory rights, the Labor Party not only wouldn't support Senator McMahon's bill but also, in the past, have voted directly to overturn Northern Territory bills on mandatory sentencing. When it comes to issues that they don't support, they have been very happy to utilise the Commonwealth constitutional powers in relation to territories to override a law of the Northern Territory. That has been the Labor Party's view, and I believe even the current Leader of the Opposition was part of the opposition that actually voted for that.

Senator Gallagher says, 'In the ACT, if you go over to Queanbeyan, they have more rights.' Let's be clear on what Senator Gallagher and others are arguing for for the ACT. They are actually arguing for 13 members of the territory assembly to have more rights than those in New South Wales. What happens in New South Wales is that they have this thing called an upper house, which is a check and balance on the power of the lower house. That is something that we don't have in the ACT or indeed in the Northern Territory. When she says she wants to have the same rights, actually she wants 13 members of the Labor-Greens government to have far more power than the New South Wales government has. If it were to pass in New South Wales in the lower house, it would go through the detailed inquiry and scrutiny of an upper house. We don't have that for the territories, and the only check on territory power is the Commonwealth parliament. We exercise that intervention very rarely, it must be said—very rarely. But it came together in a conscience vote many years ago, and it was tested again in a conscience vote. We saw Labor members, Liberal members, Nationals members and crossbenchers voting not to overturn the Andrews legislation in 2018.

There are another couple of important points I'd like to make on the issue more broadly. When we look at the issue of assisted suicide and whether or not we can trust the 13 members of the ACT Legislative Assembly to deliver fair and just laws in relation to assisted suicide, I would just point members of the Senate to the performance of the ACT government and its health system. The management of the health system under this government has been an absolute disgrace. They've underinvested in palliative care and have some of the longest waiting times for elective surgery in the country. If they were to pass these types of laws in the ACT unchecked—and, make no mistake, they would be the most extreme, unchecked euthanasia laws in the country, by far—would that improve the situation for those who are doing it tough and going through the health system, those experiencing palliative care? Would we see more investment compared to the underinvestment in palliative care from the ACT government? Would there be an incentive for them to do that? We heard from Dr Michael Chapman, Canberra Hospital's director of palliative medicine, who said:

… a pressing priority to provide optimal end of life choices in the ACT requires people to have real access to quality palliative care, which is currently not always the case for many and not always the case when they need it. People often receive too little, too late, or no services at all.

Dr Chapman's evidence to the inquiry into end-of-life choices in the ACT confirmed that there are just four full-time equivalent palliative medicine specialists operating in the territory, half the number required for the size of the population. Given that the territory treats many patients from the surrounding regions, this number again falls short. John Watkins, the chair of the board of Canberra's Calvary Hospital, also notes:

… rather than weakening current protections we should instead be talking about how we best support the dignity and personal needs of those reaching the end of their life in addition to their families and make sure that care is available and accessible to all.

It's also significant to note that the 2016 review of the National Palliative Care Strategy found that there remain significant barriers to access to palliative care services for a number of people within the population, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and:

… there is work to be done in developing culturally specific activities to address the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to help improve access for those who need it.

Indeed, Senator Pat Dodson spoke to this issue when we debated a similar bill in the Senate in 2018:

Where First Nations people are already overrepresented at every stage of our health system, it is irresponsible to vote in favour of another avenue to death. Paving the way for euthanasia and assisted suicide leaves First Nations people even more vulnerable, when our focus should be on working collectively to create laws that help prolong life and restore their right to enjoy a healthy life.

Senator Dodson makes an important point. I just note that Senator Gallagher seeks to make it about my position, which has been on the record for many years, including ahead of the last election, when the Labor Party sought to make this an issue at the election and they encouraged people, as is their right, to vote against me because of my views on issues including euthanasia. But, when she seeks to make it simply about my vote—as one of the 39 senators who voted against the bill last time—it's also a criticism of her colleagues, including Senator Dodson, who happen to have a different view.

As I said at the outset, when Senator Gallagher and others try and claim that it's not about euthanasia and is actually about territory rights, the lie to that has been put by the way they have treated Senator McMahon's bill. If it were not about the issue of euthanasia, if it were simply about the issue of territory rights, then why wouldn't you support all aspects of Senator McMahon's bill? Why wouldn't you simply be removing any restrictions on the Northern Territory to legislate in exactly the same way as a state? Well, it doesn't have that same right, and, if this bill in its amended form were to pass, it would continue to not have those same rights. So we are brought back to this conscience issue, which I know that people in this chamber and across the country have different views on. I've put my views on that issue on the record, but to try and misrepresent them in the way that Senator Gallagher has throughout this debate, to misrepresent—it's incorrect that I, in any way, tried to block Senator McMahon from bringing this bill forward. It's absolutely incorrect. The fact that you have got to misrepresent the situation in terms of making your argument—we had the embarrassing situation where the ACT assembly wrote to all senators and repeated that falsehood that Senator Gallagher had put in her petition. We had the embarrassing situation of an assembly—arguing to have more rights, to have more power to deliver laws—that couldn't even deliver an honest statement. They had to have a complete misrepresentation, in terms of making its argument, which I think undermines those arguments.

Finally, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating has had significant things to say about this. He talked about what happens with the further liberalisation of these types of laws, that when you pass euthanasia legislation what you see is further liberalisation. We have seen that in Europe. We've seen extreme versions of that in Europe. I would put to the Senate that, in fact, even in the parliaments in Australia that have passed it—in Victoria we saw significant restrictions and significant safeguards when it was passed. We have seen less in WA and less again in Queensland. I would put to it you that should we see the ACT legislating on this issue what we will see are laws with the least safeguards in the country. We do still have some Constitutional responsibilities here. We can choose to exercise those. We do it very rarely. We do it on some of the most significant issues. In terms of this bill, as it's going to be amended—as understand it will be a conscience vote—I won't be supporting it.