Page 230 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 26 February 2014
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I do have concerns about this motion. I think that it achieves very little in terms of taking the debate forward since we last spoke in this place. But if the government want to examine a couple of reports that do not exist, it is really a matter for them to worry about.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo—Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Housing, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for Ageing) (5.56): I welcome the discussion Ms Porter has sought to bring to the Assembly today. These are challenging issues and the snide tone of Mr Hanson's comments added very little to the debate and reflect much more on him than on the nature of Ms Porter's motion. These end-of-life issues are very important to the Canberra community. As the decision-makers in this Assembly we should be doing all we can to ensure that people can maintain a quality of life in their later years and that when they have a terminal illness they are empowered to make critical decisions about their own life and death. Giving them that power is about giving a person control and dignity in what is probably the most significant and vulnerable time in a person's life.
As the Minister for Ageing, through the course of carrying out that set of responsibilities, I have the occasion obviously to spend time with a range of older people in our community. I have all sorts of discussions with them, but it would be fair to say that issues of aged care, palliative care, advanced care planning, end-of-life choices and, yes, euthanasia, are issues that older Canberrans raise with me.
Perhaps as they approach those issues in their lives they get very pragmatic about it and it does not become some ideological issue or some taboo issue; it is a very real and practical issue that people face. They are usually very serious, very sensitive and thoughtful discussions with older members of our community who take these issues very seriously and who want them to be talked about in a way that the community is actually engaging in. For my mind, that is where I feel very positive about the work that Ms Porter is doing in trying to have that conversation. Mr Hanson's comments have highlighted how difficult it is to try and even start that conversation. For example, Ms Porter has just been accused of having an agenda, and I think that is symptomatic of how difficult it is to try and have these conversations.
I know many older Canberrans find that very frustrating. The ones I am talking to are saying, “Look, we just need to have a real and practical conversation about this.” For my mind, that is the most important part of this, and I would like to think the Assembly can have those conversations in a way that is meaningful.
It is well known—I will put it on the table—that the Greens support giving people the right to choose how they might end their lives. We would allow terminally ill people who are experiencing intolerable pain, suffering or distress the ability to choose to die in a peaceful and dignified death at the time of their choosing. That is no great secret. Many Greens members have said that over the years and in various other jurisdictions.
That said, I acknowledge that it is still a very sensitive discussion in the community, and that is where having discussions like we are today and the sort of fora Ms Porter
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