The former Northern Territory chief minister who was instrumental in legalising voluntary euthanasia has warned it could take years to lift restrictions on the territories if the latest push to repeal Andrews Bill falls over.
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Marshall Perron has also urged the ACT's parliament to adjourn while the Senate debates restoring the territory's right to make laws on assisted dying next month, and head across to Parliament House to shake some trees.
Speaking at an ACT parliamentary hearing on end-of-life choices on Thursday, the former Country Liberal party politician said the elephant in the room was the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997, which nullified his voluntary assisted dying scheme and knocked on the head an attempt by the ACT's parliament to introduce one too.
The private member's bill from Senator David Leyonhjelm is the latest in a series of attempts over the last decade to give the ACT and Northern Territory back the power to legalise euthanasia.
Mr Perron said unless that bill passed both houses of federal parliament, he suspected it would take "many, many years, possibly decades" before the federal parliament addressed the issue.
He said while there was a lot going on behind the scenes ahead of the vote, those who felt strongly about restoring territory rights had only weeks to "badger" their federal MPs to support it.
"The issue at this point is not yes or no to voluntary assisted dying, the issue is the rights of territorians to make that decision for themselves through their parliamentary representatives. That’s what the issue is about," Mr Perron said.
"Unfortunately the federal politicians in 1997 and I believe on this occasion most of them, probably 90 per cent, will base their decision on their views on voluntary assisted dying. That’s unfortunate because that is not the issue before them. It’s a matter of state and territory rights that’s before them not whether they can do it, they certainly can under the constitution over territory legislation, it’s whether they should."
Despite this, Mr Perron said he believed the bill could pass the Senate in August.
"However if it fails in the House of Representatives or the Senate I believe that this issue will be dead, excuse the pun, for many many years for territorians," Mr Perron said.
He urged ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr to do "everything possible" to ensure the bill passed.
Mr Barr wrote a letter to federal parliamentarians advocating the repeal of the bill, but Mr Perron said he had the resources of the entire government behind him to do more.
"I would think the sort of thing a chief minister determined to do everything possible would do is move a motion in the Legislative Assembly and have a motion pass for all members to physically adjourn the Assembly and adjourn to federal Parliament House during the course of debate, with a view to influencing whatever federal members from across the country that they could during the course of the debate starting on the 14th of August. That’s what I would probably try and do," Mr Perron said.
A spokeswoman for Chief Minister Andrew Barr said while it was an interesting idea, the Assembly had important work to do.
"The Chief Minister has directly put the ACT Assembly’s position to members and senators and will continue to do so when opportunities present themselves," she said.
'The territory had done something no parliament in the world had done'
Had federal Liberal backbencher Kevin Andrews not introduced the Euthanasia Laws Act in 1997, Mr Perron believes at least 1000 people would have used the Northern Territory's scheme in the last 20 years.
He said he met with Mr Andrews in the lead-up to the passage of the so-termed Andrews Bill, as well as a number of other federal politicians.
"It was no secret about Kevin Andrews’ intention. He was urged by, I understand, then Prime Minister John Howard to take an interest in what was happening in the territory and there was concerns obviously from John Howard and Kevin Andrews about it," Mr Perron said.
"He was driven by the fact that the territory had done something no parliament in the world had done and that he believed it was immoral . Kevin Andrews, I was aware then and still am, is a powerfully religiously motivated man so I understood where he was coming from and he was one of those people that believed only God can give life and only God can take it and obviously I had different views to that."
Mr Perron said Labor figures were also working furiously to kill the Northern Territory's assisted dying scheme
"Tony Burke at that time wasn’t a federal politician but he was working behind the scenes with the Labor religious networks and Kevin Andrews was doing the same on the Liberal side and between them they were very effective," Mr Perron said.
In hindsight, he believes it was a mistake not to include a residential status clause in the scheme.
Three of the four people who died by voluntary euthanasia when it was legal were from interstate - two from NSW and one from South Australia.
Mr Perron said they did not restrict the scheme to Northern Territory residents because it seemed cruel to give one person access and not another.
"At that stage, the motivation for the legislation was one of compassion, for removing the suffering," Mr Perron said.
