Hearings on assisted dying bill close

After four months and more than 2000 oral submissions, the largestever parliamentary hearing has come to a close.

A tour by parliamentarians which travelled to 14 cities to hear the country’s views on the End of Life Choice Bill, which will legalise assisted death, ended on Monday.

MPs will now hear from international submitters before committee staff condense the views expressed into a report early in 2019.

The vast majority of public submissions heard were against the bill, and suggestions to amend it have MPs considering whether to confine it to terminal illness or include additional restrictions.

Labour MP Ginny Andersen was in support of the bill but said ‘‘some changes need to happen’’.

The bill would allow New Zealanders aged 18 and older who suffer from a terminal illness likely to end their life within six months, or a grievous and untreatable medical condition, to choose an assisted death upon assessment of two doctors and potentially a psychiatrist or psychologist.

‘‘One of the suggestions the committee has heard is that the bill should explicitly exclude mental health and disability,’’ Andersen said. ‘‘It largely does already by the way it is worded . . . but people in both those areas think the bill could be strengthened or fixed.’’

National MP Maggie Barry said hearings had reinforced her view better funding for palliative care was required.

‘‘A lot of people who have come to us have said they feel like a lot of people have had difficult deaths in New Zealand, and I agree this should not be the case.’’

Act MP David Seymour, responsible for the member’s bill, said the process, so far, had been the most extensive consultation ever undertaken by Parliament.