By Margaret Maccoll
The Reason Party’s Victorian MP Fiona Patten was in Noosa supporting local candidate Robin Bristow after last week taking part in the marathon effort to push through the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill that she initiated in May.
Fiona said it needed an Independent Member to put forward the motion for the Bill as “a party wouldn’t have done it”.
The bill was decided after 61 hours of debate over several days on a conscience vote and passed, with amendments, 22-18 votes in the Upper House.
Because amendments to the bill were agreed, it returns this week to the Lower House for ratification before becoming law.
Once passed, it will give patients suffering intolerable pain the right to choose a doctor-assisted death from 2019.
Fiona said personal experiences affected people’s decision, but she’d like to think it was the 75-80 per cent of people surveyed to be in favour of it that made a difference.
“For the premier, I think it was the death of his father. He said it would have given his father greater peace of mind,” she said.
Fiona said she hoped other states would follow Victoria and might take advantage of the study done on the issue through the Parliamentary Inquiry.
She said medical specialists and representatives from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) were among those involved in the Inquiry and a committee travelled overseas to investigate processes undertaken in other countries.
