Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (5 November) . . Page.. 3661 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

as this. Nonetheless, that decision has been made and the very high cost that will be associated with making a statement about euthanasia, when there is no power to back that statement up in legislation, is too high a cost to pay. So, it is pointless inflicting that very high cost on the community of the ACT.

The other point which needs to be made is that my party is a very firm supporter of the concept of referenda to decide critical issues of concern to the broader community. In most circumstances, we would support referenda of this kind being put before the community of this Territory, but not at the initiative of politicians. In such cases, they should be most certainly at the initiative of citizens. I hope members of this place will have the opportunity to further consider the citizen-initiated referendum legislation that my party has before the house at the moment.

The Crimes (Assisted Suicide) Bill is a piece of legislation which is deserving of more thought and care. It has been characterised already as euthanasia through the back door. It has been described as a way of so relaxing the penalties associated with euthanasia, or assisted suicide, to be more precise, that the offence is effectively not an offence at all and is sanctioned by virtue of the very slight tap on the wrist which is administered in a case where, say, a medical practitioner assists someone to commit suicide.

There are some problems with the legislation itself, quite apart from the broader issue which the legislation gives rise to. I will run through those quite quickly. The provisions deal differently with medical practitioners, health professionals and people who are neither medical practitioners nor other health professionals. Indeed, much more serious penalties are provided for those people who are not medical practitioners or health professionals than for a medical practitioner. Somewhat surprisingly or even uncharacteristically for Mr Moore, a medical practitioner doing a certain thing incurs a much lower penalty - in the case of the provisions in clauses 4 and 5, a term of imprisonment as low as three months as the maximum penalty - than a person who does exactly the same thing but who is not a medical practitioner. A non-medical person doing exactly the same thing as a medical practitioner is liable to a penalty of four years' imprisonment for the same offence.

Mr Moore: Because they are not qualified to meet all the conditions.

MR HUMPHRIES: If it is wrong to do it, in theory it should be wrong for everyone to do it; not merely because of the - - -

Mr Moore: No; it is all about shades. It is not as wrong for somebody who has a pertinent qualification and can meet the conditions.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes; that is the argument, but we are supposed to be saying that it is wrong in any circumstance. We might say that jaywalking is wrong, just as murder is wrong, but we obviously provide different penalties for it. But we would not provide that people be differently penalised for precisely the same offence because of who they are.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .