One of the most frustrating things about being an MP is that you must follow the party line when parliament votes in our Westminster system. Members have a chance to put their point of view in the caucus/party room, but if you don't convince your colleagues, you are expected to vote with your party.
In my 14 years in the senate, I only took part in a free vote on three occasions. Each was a matter of conscience; embryo research, human cloning and euthanasia (voluntary assisted dying - VAD) in the Northern Territory. The debates on these issues were most memorable. With the VAD debate in 1996, MPs studied the problems very carefully and then searched their conscience. Passing through the senate lobby one day, I found two of my more religious colleagues in an earnest debate on the VAD issue. One quoted the Old Testament to support his case, and the other fired back with verses from the New Testament.
People often have very strong views on VAD, and community support has now increased to 80 per cent. It has certainly exercised my mind now that I am 75. I have outlived my male forebears, and I have had a few medical scares in the past five years. Facing death indeed focuses the mind - particularly when you are in your mid-seventies. So what will the end days be like?
We all have stories about some family members who passed quickly and peacefully and others whose lives ended in tragic circumstances. With my two times great grandmother, the newspaper reported, 'she died in distressing circumstances'. Heartbreaking for her loved ones who looked on. The lottery of life and death.
Despite modern medicine's pain management techniques and the widespread availability of palliative care, there is still a pervasive concern in the community about the efforts made to briefly prolong life, even when death is inevitable within a short time.
Should VAD be available, and if so, under what conditions? Again, there are complex issues and firmly held beliefs on both sides of this debate. In Australia, most states and territories have either adopted VAD (Victoria and WA) or are likely to soon. However, the states have handled the complex provisions and safeguards differently.
In NSW, VAD legislation was rejected by one vote in 2019. This year, support is growing for a revised bill across the political spectrum. The VAD bill will be introduced on August 12 and debated in September.
This time the NSW legislation might pass because the proposers, Greens' Alex Greenwich and Lake Macquarie Independent Greg Piper, have designed a bill that is the most conservative and minimalist of all the VAD bills put to an Australian parliament. Under their proposed VAD provisions, adults only with a severe illness with a life expectancy of six to 12 months will be eligible. There are strong safeguards around access, administration and exemptions.
However, if the new VAD law does go through, will these safeguards stay in place over time? Already advocates are pressing for VAD procedures to be extended beyond the terminally ill to the chronically ill, 'whose life is unbearable.' But how do you define that? On such a slippery path, what will be the fate of the VAD safeguards in five or 10 years? Protections have unwound over time in other areas of social policy because legislation and regulation can be amended.
Legislative changes can slip through the parliament late at night, with few MPs present and become law. With regulations, they have to sit on the parliamentary notice paper for two weeks, and then they automatically go through and become law if no one objects. Change by stealth to achieve the original objectives of social reformers has occurred in many other areas of social policy. Changes to the rules that control gambling should serve as a wake-up call, with the legal safeguards being unwound over time around poker machines, casinos and TABs. For example, to manage the 'social evils' that came from SP bookmaking, this activity was legalised by creating TAB agencies. However, the rules around their operation were initially stringent.
Punters would enter these gambling agencies and find unattractive lino floors and stackable steel chairs. No comfort and fraternisation discouraged. They were also required to be located away from drinking venues. Over time, all TABS were relocated to very comfortable pubs and clubs, with betting and drinking co-located. As a result, the initial controls and safeguards have evaporated. The original legislation and regulations also unravelled with poker machines and casinos.
Apart from gambling, the same thing has happened with other contentious areas of social legislation, for example, abortion laws. Will the fate of VAD laws be any different under the sustained pressure of lobby groups pressing for broader access? Why would VAD be any different if the regulation of so many other social reforms unravelled over time? And what other social ills might that produce?
