Voluntary Euthanasia

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:45): Following the seminar at the Hawke Centre earlier this year, and also the reception at Parliament House, we had guests the former Northern Territory chief minister, Marshall Perron, and Dr Rob Jonquiere, the World Federation of the Right to Die, as our main speakers. These were very well-attended events and, as a consequence, a number of constituents and people in South Australia generally have contacted me asking when the next bill is going to be introduced with regard to dignity in dying and voluntary euthanasia.

I have also been very mindful of what has been happening in other places. Dying with Dignity Tasmania advises that they are going to be planning new voluntary assisted dying legislation before the end of the year and former premier, now Labor backbencher, Lara Giddings, and Senator Nick McKim, who has replaced Senator Christine Milne, are keen to sponsor a bill, and it looks as if there is going to be some work, certainly in Tasmania, on that issue.

I was interested to read in the most recent SAVES Bulletin, (the South Australia Voluntary Euthanasia Society Inc.) that there has been an interesting article featuring in The Economist newspaper. I have to confess that I am not an avid reader of The Economist, but it is interesting that for quite some time, I am advised in this article, there have been a number of articles on social issues, including the right to assisted dying.

The most recent article that has been quoted is by international editor, Dr Helen Joyce, who participated in the 2015 Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas, where she presented a lecture entitled the Right to Die, and it was very interesting that she did this. She is not very complimentary to us politicians. She defines the issue of assisted dying as 'the most complex contemporary issue' and one that effectively silences politicians in an act which she calls 'political cowardliness'.

She also states that her research reveals that sick people want to stop not only the pain but also their existential suffering at the end of life. She says that such suffering is characterised by feelings of hopelessness, indignity, loneliness, exhaustion and loss of bodily functions. She argues that many jurisdictions still stand in the way of the choice of dying under any circumstances and that an increasing number of people believe this is wrong.

I know certainly from the public opinion polls that have been carried out in the last two decades that an overwhelming number of people think that the choice should be there for people to make about the end of their days, particularly if they are in pain and in circumstances that are intolerable to them. In addition, The Economist polled residents in 14 OECD countries, plus Russia, to compare support for dying amongst advanced nations. They found that a majority in every country, except Poland and Russia, polled in positive ways with regard to having access to assisted dying.

I am also told that one of the views that has been put forward is that terminally ill people who have a high quality of palliative care may be more open to the idea of assisted dying than those who do not. The Economist stated that some in America and elsewhere think that demand for assisted dying would shrink if other options for dying patients, such as hospice care, was more widely available. However, it was noted in that article, particularly in research by Clive Seale, sociologist in Brunel University London, that terminally ill patients in British hospices were more, not less, likely to consider doctor-assisted dying than those in hospitals. By entering a hospice, patients must accept they are close to death, and often consider themselves and all their alternatives.

Time expired.