Page 496 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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What I do not support, however, is the desire by Ms Porter to change the federal law, the self-government act, that would allow this place to introduce euthanasia laws—in essence, the removal of subsections 23(1A) and 23(1B) of the self-government act.
These matters have all been subject to extensive debate in this place. Indeed, there was a review of the self-government act conducted by the admin and procedures committee in late 2012 in the lead-up to the last election. My position on these matters, and that of the opposition, has not changed. We do not support the removal of that section of the self-government act. There is a philosophical view perhaps that is different in terms of what should and should not be debated in this place. Perhaps it is not dissimilar to the debates on the Marriage Act, on same-sex marriage, where the High Court ruled, for good reasons, that issues that have an effect on our whole nation are best dealt with, and legally dealt with, through the federal parliament—as with issues like euthanasia, equally.
If those elements of the self-government act were repealed, I think it is likely that at some stage we would have euthanasia laws introduced in this place. It is clear that there is agitation for those laws from sections of this Assembly. I do not think that that is hidden; it is part of Mr Rattenbury’s agenda for that to be implemented.
The question is whether having euthanasia laws implemented in the ACT, essentially driven by advocates across Australia who would see the ACT as a soft touch as the starting point for rolling that out, is what we want to be occurring here. My view is no, and that is the view of the opposition. This is a substantive debate that needs to be the remit of a bigger jurisdiction and, in my view, should be dealt with at a national level.
We know that that is not the position of the Greens. On a number of occasions, Bob Brown advocated for the repeal of those laws. I would make the point that that was unsuccessful—that the agitation from this place to the federal parliament was unsuccessful under the federal Labor government that had the numbers in both houses for this. Knowing that the Greens supported that repeal, it was up to the Labor Party to get that done if they so wished. That did not occur. I just put that on the record so that we do not have yet more rewriting of history and critique of the federal Liberal government despite a consistent position on this federally from the winning government. It seems that the Labor Party has a different view in government from in opposition, but there has been a consistent view on that federally between the federal Liberal and federal Labor parties. Clearly the Greens have a different view.
I have spoken at length on this in debates before, on 24 August 2012, 14 August 2013 and 18 September 2014, when we had very similar debates in this place on matters put forward by either Mr Rattenbury or, on a number of occasions, Ms Porter. I will not necessarily re-litigate all the points I have made before. They have been made; our position has not changed. Nothing in the debate has changed substantively that would cause us to change our view.
I would make a point of clarification, though. Within the Liberal Party, reflecting our diversity of views on issues, matters of euthanasia are a conscience issue—unlike the Greens, for whom it is a party platform. They do not allow choice in the Greens. They
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