Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022 and I acknowledge the work of my House colleagues Alicia Payne and Luke Gosling in bringing this private member's bill into the parliament. As a territorian I support this bill—and I want to be clear about what this debate is about. Right now, hundreds of thousands of Australians have fewer democratic rights because of their postcode. Because they live, work and raise their families in a territory, they have fewer rights. That decision was made for them by this parliament 25 years ago, when the Andrews bill became law, preventing the ACT and Northern Territory legislatures from considering or debating laws relating to voluntary assisted dying. In doing so, that legislation restricted the rights of territory citizens by placing restrictions on the autonomy of their democratically elected legislatures.

But it has been a quarter of a century since that decision was made and times have changed. Every state has now considered and debated laws on this issue: Victoria in 2017, Western Australia in 2019, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland in 2021, and New South Wales earlier this year. All the bill before us today does is allow the ACT and the Northern Territory that same right. It does not compel their parliaments to legislate on this issue; it simply restores their right to do so—their right to legislate in their own terms, in their own words and on behalf of their own citizens on the issue of voluntary assisted dying. It removes the constraint on the legislative authority of those democratically elected parliaments, which does not exist anywhere else in Australia.

I understand that many of my colleagues may be personally opposed to the issue of voluntary assisted dying, and I acknowledge within my own community that there are a diversity of views. But this bill is not about that; it's about whether every Australian, regardless of where they live, should have the same right to self-determination. The territory parliaments are mature parliaments. They run hospitals, build schools, design transport networks, deliver emergency services, shape cities and manage multibillion-dollar economies, and we have seen over the last two years they've led the pandemic response. The people they represent deserve the same right to self-determination as every other Australian.

Now, this is not the first time I have spoken in this place to support a bill on territory rights, nor the first time that I've campaigned to get this done. It's been a long journey, and for more than a decade I have fought to end this discrimination against Canberrans. Ten years ago as Chief Minister I made a submission on behalf of my government for a review of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988, arguing that the Andrews bill was a constraint on the ACT's legislative power, that it should be removed and that its inclusion was an unnecessary constraint on ACT policy choice, a constraint that was not possible in the states. In 2014 I continued my campaign as Chief Minister, writing to the federal parliamentary Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee to argue that the Andrews bill creates a differential democratic right between citizens in the states and territories and that repealing the legislation would ensure that all Australians were treated equally before their parliaments.

After arriving here in the Senate in 2015 I got straight to work on building support in this building to get it done. In 2016 I co-sponsored with former Greens Senator Di Natale the Restoring Territory Rights (Dying with Dignity) Bill, which would have repealed the Andrews bill and dealt with the issue. Unfortunately that bill was not allowed to come to a vote by the government of the day. I continued trying the same year and again in 2017, supporting former independent Senator Leyonhjelm's Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill, working across the aisle to get it passed. That bill came to a vote a year later in 2018 and was narrowly lost by just two votes.

That brings us to where we are today, and this is our best chance to get it done. Having worked since my time as Chief Minister to do this, I'm optimistic that in 2022 we can right this wrong, because the difference this time around is that we have a Prime Minister who facilitated as a priority a debate and a vote on territory rights in the House. This was a commitment Labor made last year and one we followed through on in the very first sitting on the new parliament. It matters because before now, even if the Senate had passed a bill, previous governments wouldn't have allowed the issue to be debated in the House, a reality that had played out time and again over many years.

With debate and a vote on the Restoring Territory Rights Bill facilitated in the House last month, we saw the bill pass on 3 August with an overwhelming majority of 99 votes to 37. That vote highlighted the broad support for getting this done, with Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Greens and independent members of parliament voting for it, including the Prime Minister, opposition leader and Nationals leader. We have seen every federal representative of the ACT support the restoration of territory rights, with my Labor colleagues Alicia Payne, Andrew Leigh and Dave Smith having long advocated and championed getting this done. We have seen every federal Labor representative of the Northern Territory support this bill, and we have seen every member of the ACT Legislative Assembly, Labor, Liberal and Greens, support the removal of this legislative constraint, with the passing of a unanimous motion on 31 March in 2021. I would like to acknowledge that the ACT Minister for Human Rights, Tara Cheyne, is with us in the gallery—and my colleagues from the House; sorry, I had not seen you there. But that shows you just how important ACT representatives believe repealing this legislation is.

With every state having now considered and debated legislation on voluntary assisted dying, with broad support across the House and unanimous support at federal and territory level here in Canberra, this is our best chance to get this done. As this bill begins debate in the Senate, my message to Canberrans is: I know how much this matters to you, to every one of you who have spoken and made your voice heard. Whether you are one of the thousands who signed the petition last year or whether you raised it with me in the aisles of Woolworths or at a street stall across town, whether you called, emailed or wrote to me, your advocacy on this mattered. You're not asking for much; you're just asking for the same rights as your neighbours across the border in Queanbeyan. Standing here right now, I speak on behalf of every single one of you.

While this parliament made a decision 25 years ago to restrict the democratic rights of Australians living in the territories, more relevantly today it has the opportunity to end that discrimination and restore those rights, because the continuation of this discriminatory legislative constraint on the people of the ACT and the Northern Territory cannot be justified. The bill before us today would ensure that every Australian, regardless of whether they live in a state or territory, has the same democratic rights. I thank the Prime Minister for facilitating the vote in the House and giving us the best chance we've ever had to deal with this issue. Without his commitment, we would not be in this position today. As this bill is considered by the Senate, I extend an open invitation to any of my colleagues to continue discussing this bill and to share what it means to the constituents I represent.

Colleagues, the House has spoken decisively on this bill. My hope is that the Senate plays its role, too; that the Senate stands up for democratic equality, and senators can do that by supporting this bill. I hope that we are able to get the majority of senators to do that, to right this wrong, and to ensure that every single Australian, no matter where you live, enjoys the same democratic rights as other Australians.