Terminally ill deserve choice at end of their life

NEXT week supporters of voluntary assisted dying will meet at Parliament House in Brisbane in an effort to convince state MPs to hold a parliamentary inquiry into this issue of community concern — an issue that affects us all.

Terminally ill Queenslanders deserve to have a choice at the end of their lives — a good death or a bad one.

A parliamentary inquiry is the first step towards that choice and the Clem Jones Trust and Dying With Dignity Queensland are working together to achieve it.

A parliamentary inquiry can hear all sides of the argument, assess expert evidence, and separate fact from fiction.

The issue has been examined and debated in all states except Queensland. VAD laws passed by the Northern Territory Parliament in the mid- 1990s were overturned by John Howard’s federal government.

In November 2017 — after an extensive parliamentary inquiry — the Victorian Parliament passed voluntary assisted dying laws effective from mid- 2019.

Bills were debated but narrowly failed to pass in NSW in November 2017 and in SA in November 2016, and a Bill was voted down in Tasmania in May 2017. In WA a parliamentary inquiry into VAD established in August 2017 is due to report in August this year. The length of inquiries — at least 12 months in both Victoria and WA — shows why Queensland needs to establish one sooner not later.

I urge all MPs to take an interest in this issue and support a parliamentary inquiry.

I also urge all Queenslanders to contact their local state MP and make their views known.

DAVID MUIR, Chair of the Clem Jones

Trust, Brisbane