Page 3505 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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If you accept that, I cannot understand your objection in principle to this legislation. I can understand objections to detail. There has been a lot of movement in detail from Mr Moore's original Bill through the committee stage, the Bill recommended by the committee and introduced by Mr Moore, and the Government's detailed amendments that we are now debating. Mr Moore has accepted a lot of those detail changes. Further protections have been built in at the detail stage to make it abundantly clear that the right of pain relief - and I will go to some law on that later on - is only such as is reasonable. So, we are making it very clear that this is not a suicide Bill. If you accept, as you do, Mr Kaine, that there is a common law right to refuse treatment, I find it hard to understand an objection in principle to what this Bill is trying to do.
MR MOORE (11.24): Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that Mr Kaine and some of his colleagues have simply been filibustering in this process. He knows quite well, Madam Speaker, that a couple of health professionals being witnesses can be dealt with in court in the normal way. They can be asked what happened and cross-examined. He knows quite well that that is a normal process, and Mr Connolly has certainly clarified that for him.
Let me give another example, Madam Speaker. After a private members business session on this Bill, Mr Kaine said that, shame, horror, there were 50-odd amendments to this Bill. Then, of course, the Right to Life people were on the radio all that day saying, "This must be a fatally flawed Bill, because it has so many amendments to it". That very afternoon, in this chamber, we continued the most appropriate process of debating the Commercial and Tenancy Tribunal Bill, which had over 50 amendments. There were many more amendments to that Bill than there are to this Bill; but did we hear Mr Kaine saying, "This is a terribly fatally flawed Bill because it has all these amendments."? Not at all. In this case, Madam Speaker, it is a simple filibuster. Although Mr Kaine has not actually called for a vote to be counted, he sits there calling no, no, no, as each clause comes down. That is quite flabbergasting on a Bill of this nature.
Mr Kaine draws attention to the fact that I have made it quite clear publicly and in this house that I intend to pursue active euthanasia. I think that maybe the problem is that he is confusing what is before us - passive euthanasia - with my agenda. I have no difficulty with Mr Kaine expressing his opinion on anything, but to take such an incredibly conservative stand on a Bill on passive euthanasia reflects a simpering attitude to the Right to Life movement.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
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