Page 991 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
dying and whether and how these risks can be managed; the applicability of voluntary assisted dying schemes operating in other jurisdictions to the ACT, particularly in Victoria; the impact of federal legislation on the ACT determining its own policy on voluntary assisted dying; and the process for achieving change.
I note that the Assembly amended the committee’s terms of reference in August 2018 to enable the committee to pursue matters raised by the debate then occurring in the Senate on the bill proposing the repeal of legislation prohibiting the ACT from enacting legislation to deal with voluntary assisted dying.
At the commencement of the inquiry the committee invited submissions from the public and wrote to a wide range of people and organisations, particularly health support and care organisations, agencies and academic commentators, seeking their views. The committee received an overwhelming response to its invitations. The committee published 488 submissions, all of which are on the committee website. This is the largest number of submissions received by a committee inquiry in the history of the Assembly. The submissions included a number from residents outside the ACT.
The committee also received a number of submissions which it did not publish, at the request of submitters. These submissions, expressing as they do very personal and confidential issues involving end of life choices and often involving personal pain, were equally valuable to committee members as published submissions.
The committee visited Victoria in April 2018 and held talks with Victorian agencies, palliative care program coordinators and members of the Victorian parliament who participated in that parliament’s 2016 inquiry into end of life choices. The committee also held talks with Victorian officials responsible for the implementation of the Victorian Voluntary Assisted Dying Act, which is to commence in June 2019. This visit was of great value to the committee and assisted its inquiries and deliberations considerably.
The committee held 10 public hearings between May and September 2018 and heard evidence from 87 witnesses representing a cross-section of organisations involved in daily management of end of life and addressing issues impacting on all elements of consideration of end of life.
Matters that the committee found generated the most interest during its inquiry included the importance of advance care planning and advance care directives for treatment to enable a person’s choices and wishes be recognised in treatment toward the end of life; the central and growing importance of palliative care in hospitals, homes, aged-care treatment programs and the training and appointment of specialist practitioners dedicated to palliative care; the particular importance of palliative care to the ACT community, palliative care in our hospitals, residential care and for individual care at home; and views put to the committee both in support of and opposition to voluntary assisted dying.
The committee has made recommendations it considers address the concerns of arguments put to us by witnesses and the committee’s views on how best to identify
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video