Voluntary Assisted Dying

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:07): My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the minister inform the council about being a witness before the United Kingdom Health and Social Care Committee's inquiry into voluntary assisted dying?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:07): I thank the member for his question and the interest that he has shown in this matter over some time. For the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act that commenced at the end of January this year, although committed to the health minister, I have been pleased to have been able to play a role as the Attorney-General in some of the legal areas that have come up as a consequence of that. I also have a very keen interest in that area generally, having been a part of the committee that people like the Hon. Dennis Hood were a part of in the last parliament, and of course the debates on that legislation in the last parliament.

Last year, I was contacted by the respective parliaments of the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and Jersey, who invited me to make written submissions to their parliamentary select committee process on voluntary assisted dying—very similar to the process that our end-of-life joint parliamentary committee undertook in the last parliament. In that submission, I was able to highlight some of the points that were put before the committee that we had in the last parliament, as well as some of the points that were debated as the bill that passed went through the committee stage in this place and in another place.

I was able, in that written submission, to talk about the evidence that had built up from Victoria—which was the first place in Australia to have a voluntary assisted dying scheme, and it has been in for some years—and the safeguards that were contained in the Victorian legislation that were translated into the South Australian legislation. I was able to reinforce the evidence that VAD materials alone, just being admitted for the scheme—the evidence showing the effect that it had on the wellbeing of patients' state of mind who are suffering at the end of a terminal illness.

Following that written submission to the United Kingdom parliament, I was pleased once again to be invited to be a witness to that actual parliamentary committee alongside—presenting at that committee from Australia via the magic of electronics—Professor Brian Owler, who is a consultant neurosurgeon at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, the Sydney Adventist Hospital, Norwest Private Hospital and Westmead Private Hospital. Professor Owler is also a former national President of the Australian Medical Association, and he has very extensive experience in voluntary assisted dying, specifically as the chair of the ministerial advisory panel in Victoria, which ultimately translated into that jurisdiction being the first in Australia to pass that legislation.

Also contributing was Professor Roderick MacLeod, a senior consultant and senior medical specialist in palliative care in New Zealand, and Dr Gary Cheung, Associate Professor and old age psychiatrist from the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Auckland.

It was a privilege to be able to present to a committee from a jurisdiction, the United Kingdom, who are considering the sorts of changes that now every state in Australia has considered and passed. We benefited, when we were considering these difficult issues in South Australia, from the experience of other jurisdictions, so to be able to do that for a jurisdiction that is now considering these things was something that was a very worthwhile thing to do, to pass on the experiences we had in drafting and passing the legislation and also the first few months of operation.