A seniors advocate has called for a political "blame game" to end to ensure voluntary assisted dying laws pass in the only Australian jurisdiction still without them.
Council on the Ageing Northern Territory CEO Sue Shearer is urging bipartisanship, saying the legislation has been delayed too long for yet more hold-ups to occur.
Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby's office is drafting voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws after an NT parliamentary committee ruled in favour of reinstating them, almost 30 years after they were overturned.
But Labor Opposition Leader Selena Uibo this week put forward her own completed VAD bill and urged the Country Liberal Party (CLP) government to adopt it, only for Ms Boothby to rule that out.
"We'd just like to see a more bipartisan approach. We're all a bit sick of this blame game going on. Let's just get on with doing the right thing," Ms Shearer told AAP.
"It's a human rights issue, it's a democratic issue, to bring us in line with the rest of Australia, so let's have a bipartisan approach to this."
Ms Shearer was on an expert panel appointed by the previous Labor government that issued a 2024 report that found the majority of Territorians wanted the choice of assisted dying.
The CLP government won power and declared the issue a non-priority before pressure for change prompted it to appoint the parliamentary committee to examine the matter again.
They should have just gone with the expert panel report, Ms Shearer said on Tuesday.
"It's been another year of waiting for people who are terminally ill and would like to have a choice," she said.
The CLP government "shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth", with Ms Uibo's private member's bill ready to be debated, rather than having to wait for the government to draft its own legislation, she said.
The NT became the first Australian jurisdiction to make voluntary euthanasia legal in 1995, but the laws were later overturned by the federal government.
All six states and the ACT have since passed their own laws allowing it.
The legal and constitutional affairs committee report approving VAD, along with drafting instructions, is to be tabled in NT parliament this week.
Ms Uibo on Monday released her draft private member's bill, saying it provided a "ready-to-go framework".
The bill includes safeguards ensuring access to VAD is voluntary and based on strict eligibility criteria and the establishment of an independent Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board.
It also includes protections for health practitioners, respecting conscientious objection.
She urged the government to work with her version rather than wait for its own to be drafted.
But Ms Boothby on Tuesday said the government would not be pushed into a corner, telling reporters the opposition leader was "trying to ram down legislation into Territorian's throats".
Nicholas Lay, NT director of the Australian Christian Lobby, believed the best outcome would be not to legislate VAD approval and instead invest in palliative care services.
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