Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Wednesday 10 June 2009

CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF TERMINALLY ILL SELECT COMMITTEE

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - I will make a short contribution to this matter. In saying that I do not mean to demean it because it is a very serious and important matter. I acknowledge the comments of members who have spoken today. It was mentioned that this bill will move through quickly. I do not think that this bill would move through quickly. If it got through the lower House it would be some time in being finalised in this House. We call the shots up here. It would be a fairly delayed process before it was finalised.

That would include many briefings and there would be much more consultation that would take place irrespective of whether or not this motion gets up and irrespective of whether or not there is a joint House committee inquiry into it.

There would be a lot more issues to be dealt with and a lot more briefings to be had in relation to it. Where do I sit with this? It is quite frightening really. The member for Pembroke and I do not see eye to eye on that many issues.

Ms Ritchie - Yes we do - peas in a pod!

Mr DEAN - On this issue when the member for Pembroke was speaking I thought that she had seen some of the things that I had written down. It was almost identical to some of the points that I was going to make.

Mr Aird - That worries us more than you.

Mr DEAN - It worries me somewhat as well! I do not support any inquiry. The member for Western Tiers referred to this. There is so much information out there, this has been going on for so long, I do not know how much more information you could take in on this. There are further developments around the world if you look at the countries that are currently practising this or currently have this legislation in place. There are changes, there is a lot of information to be gleaned from those sources. But it has been going on for almost an eternity. I will make the comment that the older you get the more interest you take in this issue.

Mr Aird - Do you reckon after tomorrow I'll take a closer interest in this.

Mr DEAN - When this started to impact on me was in 1979, at the time of the passing of my father who was a cancer sufferer, and to watch him in the Repatriation Hospital, at the time, suffer for a long period and in the last few days of his life, Madam President, to take one breath every four to five minutes was agonising for the family and that is when I started to think about this subject. There comes a time, I think, when we do need to go down this track.

My next thoughts about this were in 1989 when I was at the Airlie Police College. There was a very arduous course for police officers aspiring to senior rank within the organisations and we were asked to make impromptu speeches and I was given three minutes to speak on euthanasia. Other than my father's situation, I really had not given it a lot of thought and within a very short period of time I had to get my thought processes right to talk on euthanasia. Madam President, I am not making light of this, but people would remember 1989 was the Tiananmen Square uprising in Beijing - it was happening at the same time - and so I was able to lead in to my topic of discussion by referring to the euthanasia and these problems in Tiananmen Square. It gave me a lead in to the subject. There are lots of things that will not be mentioned here, Madam President, and, as I said, I am not going to go into a great -

Mr Aird - What would you write about if you had to write about a nightmare?

Mr DEAN - Interesting.

Madam President, the Community Development Committee report back in 1998 is interesting. That inquiry was 10 years ago and a lot of people would say that a long of things happen in 10 years. They do, there is no doubt about that, but most of the situations that have been referred to in there would apply very much to the information and the evidence that we have here today so I do not think that any inquiry really is going to change a lot from the conclusions of that report. There are 14 conclusions, and they are all very important and interesting conclusions. If either one of these inquiries does get the support to move on I will be very surprised if they do not come back with many similar findings to those in this 1998 report.

On top of that we have the Senate report. There is a huge amount of information involved in that, hence my position on not really wanting to support either inquiry. Having said that, I believe that if there has to be an inquiry, as other members have said, then I think it is much better that we go forward with a joint House inquiry. That involves the whole of the Parliament, not simply one House and one House only and I think there probably would be more credibility than a finding of a report completed by one House and one House only.

I am not saying that this report would not have credibility. I am not saying that it would not be done right, I am not saying that at all. If you have members on a committee from all areas of the Parliament I think people might be more inclined to sit up and take notice of it.

There is a lot of correspondence on this already. People have referred to the e-mails that they have received, and I think we have all received a similar amount. There is just a huge amount of correspondence out there at the present time and I was just going to refer to one or two of those as well. We have received e-mails from pastors, laymen, people out there who have watched their dear ones suffer, specialists and a whole raft of people, all with differing views or common views.

An e-mail that I wanted to refer to, Madam President, was the one from Jacky -

Mr DEAN - I have been told that I need to restrict my references to the e-mails somewhat so I will do that. I am just looking at one, Minister. I am going to refer to just a couple of e-mails, as they tell quite a good story. In doing this I must say that of all the emails I have received probably 75 per cent of them would have been asking that I support the current motion that is before this House. This one is from Jacky Lewers, as I mentioned before the break:

'The Hon. Ruth Forrest's Motion against Nick McKim's Private Members Bill is not realistic. 80% of Australians would like the Bill passed, and any religious or other beliefs should not be used to coerce or intimidate others into supporting it.

Please do not support this motion.'

Some of the comments made by people - and I noticed in some of the e-mails that I got that not everything said in those e-mails was accurate, in my view, on the information and evidence that I had. I think perhaps that might be one of them.

Another one I will refer to is from Charles Rankin. I think you would have all received this one. I quote:

'Legislation should entail that before voluntary euthanasia be allowed people would have had to make a declaration of intent some time before and have counselling from a doctor a lawyer and a third individual (not a family member) and when the individual has made a decision the means be supplied and if necessary, administered.'

If you look at the bill it pretty well covers most of that the way the bill is written. I quote again:

'I would like to bring forward to politicians notice, if they let their religious views come first in such decisions, that there will be a surge of support for secular politicians and parties.'

Another e-mail I received was from a retired pastor, and other members would have received that as well. It is interesting a couple of comments that this lady, Theresia van den Berg, makes.

'May I urge the Member not to support this motion, it will only delay the establishment of a long overdue humane law in regards to voluntary euthanasia.

I am a retired Pastor and well aware of the suffering of the terminally ill. My Christian belief is that God does not endorse the inhumane and undignified manner in which many Tasmanians are presently forced to die.

To believe that only God decides whether one shall live or die is an archaic view of the God in creation who is considered to be Love according to the Scriptures.

Furthermore, to think that God, who has given us a free will, would rather see us suffer than allow us to open the door to that other dimension we know very little of, is blasphemous and an insult to the character of the Divine Creator.'

As I said, many members received these e-mails and a whole different lot of issues were raised in those e-mails. But, as I said, the greater majority would be asking that I support the motion before this House.

I want to briefly mention the amendment that has been made and that has been referred to by other members as well. Whilst we have a time frame in there, it really does not have a great deal of meaning because if there is a need to push this out, then very clearly the matter would be brought back before this House to get an extension of time. I think the member has said that we would need a thorough investigation of this whole thing, a thorough enquiry into it, and if that inquiry is not thorough by the time that has now been inserted into the motion, then I would not have thought that they would bring back a report with only part of the information and part of the evidence available. I would be very surprised if there was not a delay in producing that report because we also have, as some other people mentioned here today, a number of other committees currently progressing. Some of those select committees are very intense committees and there is still a lot of work to be done on a lot of those committees. Would this committee take priority over those? I am not sure that it would or should because many of those issues are also important. I think that there would be some difficulties in trying to juggle this through the process. I think that would be an issue.

It has been said that we do need to have this debate and I agree with that. I was just thinking during the break period that this has gone in waves. If you think back, I think it was about the 1970s or 1980s when we had a euthanasia case at Orford. Some of you may remember that case. It was an elderly gentleman who suffocated his wife who was bedridden and bedridden for a very long period. She had no quality of life whatsoever and he was charged with manslaughter and convicted. I cannot remember the penalty, I had an idea that the penalty was a -

Mr Parkinson - Suspended sentence.

Mr DEAN - Yes, a suspended sentence, I think from memory it was. There was a lot of sympathy at that time for the gentleman in all of those circumstances. He was very elderly, he was getting to a stage where he was unable to support his wife as well. It was a very sad case for those of you who can remember it. It was a trial, he had to go through the torment of a trial, through the processes; it was quite a horrific occasion when you think about it.

Just to finish, would an enquiry help me make a decision? I would be surprised if an enquiry and a report would make any difference to the way I will see things. I will be very surprised. It is not to say that I will not be taking notice of a report, it is not to say that I will not be taking notice of the many people that are likely to want to talk to me or to provide me with the information between now and later, that is if this matter does come into this House. I certainly would be looking at it, taking notice of it but I do not think it is likely to change my view or position in relation to this matter. Having said that, as I indicated at the beginning, I will not be supporting this motion, but once again I commend the member for bringing it forward for the debate and discussion and I look forward to the other speakers.

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