A late-night sitting of the Senate is set to resolve the 25-year fight to restore the rights of the ACT and NT to legislate on voluntary assisted dying.
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The upper house will resume debating Alicia Payne and Luke Gosling's private members bill next Thursday afternoon and won't rise until it reaches a final vote.
The territory rights bill will be debated for another hour this Thursday morning - but that almost certainty won't be enough time to reach a final vote because of the number of senators lining up to make speeches.
The new slot was carved out under a deal between Labor, the Greens and ACT independent David Pocock, which handed the government two extra sitting days to rush through its packed legislative agenda.
Finance Minister and ACT Labor senator Katy Gallagher earlier this week made an iron-clad guarantee that the territory rights bill would be voted on in the final sitting fortnight of the year.
Territory rights was initially set to be relegated to the final order of business next Friday, as the Albanese government prioritised the passage of its contentious industrial relations shakeup and a bill to establish a national anti-corruption watchdog.
Senator Pocock was concerned with that approach and pushed for a re-think.
The key crossbencher feared some his colleagues might be tempted to leave early on Friday after a long fortnight in Canberra, potentially putting the chances of overturning the so-called Andrews bill at risk.
"My concern with leaving territory rights to the end is, given how much there is currently in the Senate, you can imagine a real logjam," he told reporters on Tuesday morning.
"I don't want it to get caught up."
Senator Gallagher eventually agreed to change the plans, moving the territory rights debate forward to late Thursday afternoon.
The plan could be tweaked again through a minister's motion.
Greens manager of business in the Senate Sarah Hanson-Young supported bringing on a vote to restore territory rights.
Unlike the major parties, the Greens don't treat territory rights as a conscience issue and all 12 senators will vote in support of repealing the Andrews bill.
"This legislation has been tried many times, for far too long," Senator Hanson-Young said.
"Territorians have been denied their rights because of secret deals and dodgy deals that were done in this place decades ago, and territorians have been suffering as a result.
"It is time we corrected this and it's time we made sure that all Australians are seen equal under the law."