Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly do support what Senator Duniam is seeking to do, to allow some time for the procedure office to come back to us with the requested amendments so that we can properly consider them in a fulsome way. In Western Australia euthanasia laws were passed. The voluntary assisted dying laws went through the parliament. That parliament went through quite a marathon exercise to be able to get to the position that they did and pass the laws they have. I voted at the second reading against this, but one of the things that were put in place as a result of the debate in the consideration in detail of the legislation that went through in Western Australia were necessary protections to ensure that you don't have the very worst examples that we see around the world of where euthanasia is used in other jurisdictions around the world—for example, in I think the Netherlands they allow for people to have euthanasia for psychological conditions, not just physiological health issues I don't think anyone in Australia would be contemplating that, but we can't know. We're making a decision here about legislation with an outcome that we don't fully know what the make-up of it would be.

Because of the process that the Western Australian parliament went through, they very clearly laid out what the limitations of their bill would be and the protections that would be in place. Some of the amendments that Senator Duniam has foreshadowed would go some of the way—and I appreciate that this is just a repeal bill—towards ensuring that some protections could be in place to make sure that we can't find ourselves in a situation where we are going down the path of other jurisdictions. In fact, some jurisdictions around the world allow for children to engage with euthanasia. I don't think that's something that Australians want to see contemplated, but we can't know. We're the ones who will ultimately make the decision here about a law with an ultimate outcome that will be in the territories when we can't be sure what they will be legislating and what protections they will put in place. So some of the amendments that Senator Duniam was foreshadowing go towards ensuring that there are at least some protections. I certainly ask that the Senate allow time to consider those. I don't think it would take very long to go through those very simple proposals and maybe put in place some protections in this bill to ensure that we can't have those unintended consequences.