At least before the Omicron variant of COVID-19 appeared, the Prime Minister was adamant that after almost two years of confining its citizens to their homes, shutting their businesses and closing borders, it was time for all governments to step back.

To stop interfering.

The decree signaled a retreat to a place of ideological comfort for the Coalition, who've been forced through the pandemic to do things - to impose themselves - in ways they might have only ever confronted in fever dreams.

But if Morrison and Barnaby Joyce are so keen to stop interfering in the affairs of others, to permit rather than prevent, how do they explain their position on territory rights?

How do they explain their implicit support for laws which block the Northern Territory and ACT parliaments from making their own voluntary assisted dying laws, for their own citizens?

This is fundamentally about choice, is it not, and self determination? Sounds like core Liberal values.

There is more than a little hint of hypocrisy in the Coalition's stance. And now one of their own has called it out.

Country Liberal senator Sam McMahon didn't name check the Prime Minister on Monday morning, as she advocated for her bill to restore a right stripped from the Northern Territory by the federal Parliament almost 25 years ago.

But she did invoke Morrison's message about government's "stepping back", as she posed the question of why the federal government was so willing to leave the territories to their own devices on so many issues - but not on this one.

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"The Commonwealth is standing back in every other argument saying, well, it's up to the states," Senator McMahon said.

"It's up to the states, you know, to decide if they want to have biosecurity in place. It's up to the states to decide about quarantine.

"But in this area, the Commonwealth government is still saying; 'No, you can't, we're gonna stop you. We're gonna override your right to make fair, just and needed laws for your people.

"That is absolutely not right, that is not fair."

This all begs the question. How does one explain the Coalition's position?

That territory rights is enmeshed with the sensitive and deeply personal issue of voluntary assisted dying is undoubtedly a major and complicating factor.

The Liberal architects of the 1997 ban, the still-serving Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz, have long argued that the federal Parliament was a right to - and had to - interfere because of the importance of protecting human life. The Commonwealth is powerless to stop the states, but it can override the will of the territories.

A broad range of views are held in the Coalition and Labor party room on assisted dying, and a fresh debate on the issue would no doubt lead to internal tension.

The Coalition doesn't want to have that fight, nor does it feel like it needs to.

What willingness some might have to engage the difficult and potentially divisive debate is tempered by a harsh political reality that the territories simply aren't a priority.

The ACT and Northern Territory are small. Seven out of their combined nine federal parliamentarians represent Labor, including all those who sit in the House of Representatives.

Repealing the bill - which polls suggest would be a broadly popular move - will not swing the seats which will decide next year's federal election.

While debate on the McMahon bill is now underway, the most realistic prospect of the territories regaining the right to legislate on assisted dying would be if Labor won the next election.

The Opposition has promised to prioritise debate on a repeal of the federal ban, and while a conscience vote would be allowed, senior Labor figures are confident it would pass.

If it does, Labor, and not the party of freedom and individual liberty, would be the ones responsible for restoring the rights of the territories to choose their own fate.

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