X-Message-Number: 7086 Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 08:18:51 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Australia update SYDNEY MORNING HERALD October 29, 1996 Pro-euthanasia forces reeling after bill defeat By JODIE BROUGH and HELEN PITT The Federal anti-euthanasia bill is certain get through the House of Representatives after a majority yesterday voted against sending it to a parliamentary committee for investigation. The vote, which came after a day of emotional debate, was a disaster for the pro-euthanasia forces, which had been hoping that a delay would give them time to lobby against the bill. It confounded the declaration by a leading pro-euthanasia Liberal MP, Mrs Chris Gallus, that there was "strong support" among MPs for a motion which would set the bill aside permanently. Queensland Liberal backbencher Mr Mal Brough had sought to set up a select committee to investigate euthanasia, arguing that the debate over Liberal MP Mr Kevin Andrews's private member's bill had been dominated by emotion. But his motion, which would have set up a select committee to report to Parliament by February 28 next year, was defeated by 100 votes to 35. Speaking against the bill, Mrs Gallus said doctors were "killing their patients today" without supervision or regulation and outside the law. "Doctors are not God and cannot be allowed to act as if they were," she said. "If doctors are assisting death, which by their own admission they are, then this must be under the law." The vote dismayed the pro-euthanasia lobby, with the Coalition of Organisations for Voluntary Euthanasia (COVE) saying it was "absolutely appalled and disgusted". A COVE spokesman, Dr Robert Marr, said: "It appears politicians are deciding this issue on their own prejudice and are unwilling to examine the facts or listen to the expressed wishes of the vast majority of Australians, 75 per cent of whom support voluntary euthanasia." Dr Marr said COVE was still "quietly confident" that the Senate would reject the Andrews bill. The debate, confined to six speakers, opened with Mr Andrews giving an emotive account of watching his father die from a terminal illness and a young cousin being disconnected from a life support machine after a car accident. "Euthanasia legislation sends a powerful message to the Australian community that the vulnerable are expendable and not valued," Mr Andrews said. "What is so compassionate about telling people who feel worthless that they are better off dead?" Prominent Left frontbencher Mr Lindsay Tanner said the issue was not one between Church and State but between State and citizen. It was "impossible to draw safe boundaries" to State-sanctioned killings, he said. And the spectrum of anti-euthanasia opinion was much wider than "the Catholic Right". He said each member would in the end respond to "a gut level set of values", and his were not to authorise death in view of "human fallibility". It was one of the strangest debates ever seen in the House of Representatives, with factions split and Liberal and Labor enemies united in counting numbers for the same side. As the time approached for a vote on Mr Brough's motion, Mr Andrews consulted closely with Labor number-crunchers Mr Leo McLeay and Mr Stephen Smith. The Labor Left and Right faction splintered, with Mr Tanner being publicly berated by his Left colleague, Mr Anthony Albanese, for siding with "the moral minority" by speaking in support of the bill. No Coalition frontbencher supported Mr Brough's move, which was backed only by a few staunch Liberal pro-euthanasia members, some Labor sympathisers and all Independents. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7086