I oppose the Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022, because I believe there’s nothing more important than protecting the sanctity and sacredness of life. I am concerned that going down a path to legalise or sanction the removal of one’s life elevates, above life, issues that are not to do with the sacredness of life. Once we get onto that path we move down into a utilitarian world, which can be very dangerous.
I will come back to those points, but first I want to deal with the fact that of course this bill itself doesn’t seek to legalise euthanasia; it simply seeks to give those rights and powers back, or reinstate them after an amendment in the late 1990s, to the ACT and the Northern Territory. A lot’s happened in the past 25-odd years. The rationale for this restriction 25 years ago was a strong one because at that time no other jurisdictions in Australia had legalised euthanasia. The territories being smaller jurisdictions, I don’t think it would have been proper for them to make such a monumental change first. It was right and proper to see that change occur in jurisdictions with a larger percentage of the Australian population.
Since then, many jurisdictions have legalised euthanasia, so perhaps the original justification for this restriction is not as strong. But I take up the points that Senator Duniam made here that this is not quite a black-and-white question and it’s not simply a decision to legalise euthanasia or ban euthanasia, because—as we have seen in countries that have longer experience with this—once euthanasia is made legal there are extremely difficult circumstances that arise. There are not clear lines about who should have access to assisted suicide and how the arrangements around that might be regulated. In fact, what we have tended to see in countries that have legalised euthanasia is a continual expansion of the availability of assisted suicide to more and more people.
For example, in the Netherlands euthanasia has been legal since 2006, and the number of deaths from assisted suicide has risen from two per cent to four per cent of all deaths over that period. There was also a case in recent years where a dementia patient who had not consented to being euthanised was given a sedative. She actually woke up during the process, though it was later concluded with additional drugs, I believe. Also, a survey done in the Netherlands in 2015 found that six per cent of euthanasia cases were carried out without the explicit request of the patient. In Oregon, the rate of complications of cases where circumstances are known was almost seven per cent in 2020. This raises the question that, if we are to allow the territories to not simply legalise euthanasia but also, of course, design the regulations around it, what protections are there in place to ensure that we do not go down the paths of other countries? I don’t think this is being proposed by most people who’ve made contributions to this debate. I think most of the people who support euthanasia come in good faith and seek for it to involve circumstances at the end of life where there are few options for people. But clearly in other countries there has been this expansion of the use of euthanasia to cases in which those circumstances clearly do not apply. How can we ensure that it is properly administered in the territories in question, where there are unicameral parliaments—there are not upper houses—and there is not the same parliamentary rigour associated with changing laws in these circumstances? I realise this is a tough issue for the territories, who would understandably think, ‘We deserve to decide on issues in our regions.’ But given their smaller numbers, and the fact that they do not have a bicameral system and are representing a much smaller percentage of the Australian population, I remain of the view that it’s still right and proper for the Australian parliament to set any regulations for the territories.
We could, of course, debate a bill in this chamber that did legalise euthanasia in the ACT and NT. We have the power to do that, just as the states do, and I would recommend that would be a much better pathway here because that would allow us to go through a full Senate committee process and weigh up all of these very difficult questions with due consideration.
I also think that right now, given the circumstances, especially in the Northern Territory, we have other issues we should be focused on, especially on life matters. There is a shocking outbreak of violence in many areas of the Northern Territory and there is a real deterioration in social and community conditions. A year and half or so ago, I was there in Darwin. In the outer circuits of Darwin, not just in communities, there is barbed wire around people’s fences in the suburbs because of out-of-control crime and violence. I come back to my original point that right now we should be fighting steadfast for the protection of every human life, the dignity of every human life, and the minimisation of that is one of the ills that is creating a breakdown in communities and societies in the Western world.
We have been founded as a Judeo-Christian country. The preamble to our Constitution is done so, humbly, under God, and those words were said by our founding fathers because they believed we were all created in God’s image. That preamble—while not saying it explicitly—effectively embodies the Judaeo-Christian view that every human life is sacred and should be protected and not sacrificed for other ends. In saying that, I recognise that in the difficult cases that we often discuss with legislation like this there should be the provision of appropriate palliative care to make the suffering at the end of life no harder than it otherwise would be. But as soon as we break the glass on that principle that life is more important than anything else then we open the question of what else should be treated for it. Effectively, what we are saying with legislation seeking to eventually deliver legalisation of euthanasia is that the avoidance of human suffering that occurs at the end life, which is terrible and very difficult for people to go through, is more important than the protection of life.
I am trying to give the best demonstration of the argument of my opponents of this debate. They are ultimately saying that the human suffering at these times can be so great that it outweighs the principle that we should protect life. I’m not saying my opponents don’t want to protect life. I’m sure they do, but they are introducing a circumstance where avoiding the suffering at the end of life is more important than the actual protection of life itself. I worry about the can of worms it opens because it is a utilitarian calculation.
I oppose this bill because I believe in the natural law we get from Moses and the 10 commandments especially. But wherever you get it from, the ethical system is a natural law that says there are certain axioms, certain beliefs or ethical behaviours that cannot be avoided, that cannot be offset through some other circumstance. So the protection of ‘thou shalt not kill’ is one of those that we must adhere to in everything we do. I think the communities, the societies based on a natural law, be it a Judeo-Christian one or another one, have tended to be the most generous, compassionate and, ultimately, cohesive societies because we are all on an equal footing before God, or because we all agree to certain principles. Once you introduce some kind of utilitarian ethic that someone’s life is less important than another’s, well, that opens a Pandora’s box of ethical questions that often lead to the greatest demonstrations of evil that we have seen on the earth.
I believe there is something special and unique about human life, about humans. We should do everything we can to reduce human suffering, but breaking and breaching that principle of human life opens us up to the kinds of calculations that would occur in a spreadsheet, not the humane principles of caring for and loving every human being. We should, through the laws passed in this place, seek to celebrate human life and to demonstrate a love for human life, including for those who suffer on this earth. By sanctioning in any way the removal of life violates, in my view, those principles. The best ethical system has given us the country that we sometimes take for granted.
As I said earlier, I do think that the issues that are important to the people of the ACT and the Northern Territory definitely deserve consideration in this parliament. I would encourage my colleagues that would seek to change the principles around this issue to bring forward legislation that we could consider properly. I do think that the ways and methods by which we’re seeking to do this will not provide the proper parliamentary scrutiny this issue deserves. For example, through this particular process, we really haven’t been debating these weighty issues of who should have access to euthanasia, who has to approve it, how many doctors have to be involved, or whether people have to be of a certain age or consciousness to make a decision to conduct assisted suicide. Those questions have not been canvassed in this debate—they really haven’t been—in a proper parliamentary way, because we’re focused here on the process, not the particulars of euthanasia.
I go back to where I started here: I do think we are a mature enough body to weigh those issues up ourselves. We could do so in a way that takes into account the views and considerations of the territories. Our Constitution gives us that right for a reason. We have the absolute constitutional right to make laws for the territories. That was put in our Constitution for a reason—the reason being that this parliament has got a scale that gives us the capacity to potentially deal with issues of this greatness that aren’t always available to smaller jurisdictions. Of course, if those jurisdictions do and want to become states themselves, that particular constitutional hurdle will be removed too. The Northern Territory has had the opportunity, at least, to acquire statehood. That wasn’t supported when it was put to their people many decades ago. That would be another process that could obviate this need. If one of these territories becomes a state, we would no longer have the power over them. But while they are territories, there is a good reason in our Constitution, in my view, for oversight from this body—not just the House of Representatives but the Senate as well. I think that would be a much better way to deal with these sensitive but very, very weighty issues.
