X-Message-Number: 7077 Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 12:21:46 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Australia update From the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD Oct 26/96 Chosen few may die in NT plan By MARGO KINGSTON and GAY ALCORN The Northern Territory Government has offered to amend its pro-euthanasia law to ban non-Territory residents from using it, in a last-ditch bid to persuade the Prime Minister to abandon attempts to render the law invalid through Federal intervention. Amid frantic last-minute manoeuvring within the Liberal Party to defer debate on the Federal anti-euthanasia bill, to begin on Monday, the NT Chief Minister, Mr Stone, said he would make the offer to Mr Howard next week. "One of the great arguments being used against us is that we have legislated for the whole of Australia," Mr Stone said. Under the plan, people would have to be Territory residents for a year before beginning the process of authorising a doctor to give them a lethal injection. Dr Philip Nitschke, who injected the first person to die under the NT's ground-breaking law, told the Herald that of his nine patients, seven were from interstate, including one now living in the Territory. He said it would be a "tragedy" if it was limited to locals, because it discriminated against people who were not born in the Territory. The NT Government has consistently said it was impossible to restrict euthanasia to local residents because of Section 117 of the Constitution, which says a resident of a State cannot be subject to any discrimination inapplicable in another State. But the Herald has learnt that legal advice to the NT Government in April was that the NT was not bound by the section, as it was not a State. The Territory has not made the offer until now because, as the advice stated, if the Territory wanted statehood by 2001, it would be wrong to make the law discriminatory against other Australians. Mr Stone said he would also urge Mr Howard to postpone debate until the High Court, which will hear a challenge to the NT law next month, decided whether it was valid. Under the bill, the NT, the ACT and Norfolk Island (but not the States) would be stripped of power to make laws allowing euthanasia, a move overwhelmingly opposed by last weekend's Federal Liberal Council as a breach of Territory rights. A Queensland Liberal backbencher, Mr Mal Brough, said yesterday that after the six speakers on the bill scheduled for Monday, he would ask the House of Representatives to send the issue off to a parliamentary committee. He told the Herald that like 30 per cent of members "I haven't made up my mind. We need a mature and informed approach because all we've had so far is many emotional responses." Mr Brough said Mr Howard gave him permission to make the move at a meeting last week. The Herald's Legal Correspondent, John Slee, writes: Doctors in the NT should not fear criminal prosecution if the Territory's new euthanasia law is struck down, according to the senior Sydney barrister Mr Tom Hughes, QC. Mr Hughes's opinion is that a doctor "will not be guilty of manslaughter or any other offence if, intending only to relieve pain, he or she administers a drug, knowing that the drug will not only relieve pain but may also hasten death". Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7077