Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now there has been a renewed push for the Northern
(00:02):
Territory government to get cracking on voluntary assisted dying laws
in the Northern Territory, which we know we haven't had
for more than twenty seven years. Now. I didn't get
the time to ask the Chief Minister about this this morning,
but we most certainly will now. We also know we
recently caught up with the Council of the Aging here
in the Northern Territory KOTA, who was urging the government
(00:25):
to reenact old laws with a few tweaks while it
continues to work on a new framework after extensive consultation
and the completion of a report by a Voluntary assisted
Dying Advisory Committee. Now, the Member for Johnson, Justine Davis,
has also been working on a motion paper for Parliament,
(00:45):
but there have been some delays that will mean that
it's not going to be introduced until the end of
May sittings. Now the Member, the Independent Member for Johnson
joins me on the line right now. Good morning to you, Justine.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hey kay, how are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, really good? Thank you so much for your time
this morning. Now, talk us through where things are at
with your voluntary assisted dying motion. I know you've been
working on this quite extensively behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah. So, as people may know, last year in Parliament,
the Member for Nightcliff tabled that report that you made
reference to, because that hadn't been tabled in Parliament before,
and I gave notice of emotion to implement the recommendations
of that report, one of which was to develop the
legislation bring back the right to die the right sorry,
(01:33):
the voluntary voluntary sist of dying here in the Northern Territory.
The way it works is that that goes on a
list and we moved through it over time. So it
was due to come up in this sitting of Parliament.
But I've been talking to fellow mlass across Parliament to
see whether there might be a more effective way of
(01:55):
us working on this without mejas bringing it up as
an independent Obviously, if the Government doesn't support it, I
would need to bring it as a private members bill.
I know you made reference to. I think Marshall Peren
proposing a way that we could go forward that might
be quite simple. I think they are really complex issues though,
(02:18):
and I think we need to make sure we do
it right, and I want to make sure that when
we do talk about this in Parliament and do something,
we do it and make sure something's going to happen
from it. It's not just a whole lot of talk.
So I need a little bit more time for that
discussion before we bring it to Parliament.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And so how in how do you envisage this is
going to be brought to parliament? Justin because I think
it's fair enough. You know, for the sake of one
month you're better off or two months you're better off
holding off and getting it right and have more, you know,
a better chance of it being successful.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah. Absolutely, And that's what Parliament should be, shouldn't It
should be our elected represented working together for what we
know in this case vast majority of the community wants
to make it happen in a way that's going to
meet their needs. So I think that if we can
do that, that will be great. I think so people
know the process. That motion is not the legislation. We
(03:13):
will then need to go through the process of developing
the law and then that will come to Parliament as
a bill and it will be voted on at that point,
and that will take some time. That won't be really fast.
I mean, I think we're in a really good position
here now in the Northern Territory. As we know, we
were the first place in Australia to have these laws.
We're now the only place that doesn't. But one of
the things that means is that we can learn from
(03:35):
what everyone else has done across Australia. We can learn
from the work that's been done here through that whole
consultation process, and we can then develop legislation based on
what's best across Australia and what's going to be right
for us here in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So Justine, where is it from your perspective in terms
of the work that you're now having to do behind
the scenes. So I know that you are, as you've said,
you are having to speak you know to people on
right around the Parliament here in the Northern Territory. I
was going to say in government, but it's also government
opposition everybody. You're going to need to really speak to
everybody about this, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, Yeah, that's right, and so that so that's part
of the work. Also talking to you talked about CODA,
so they're talking to you know, with CODA and other
organizations that have been advocating around this issue for a
long time to make sure that all their wisdom and
working this is incorporated in whatever we do from here.
In terms of the process of developing the lawyers, I
(04:32):
said the as an independent, I don't have any staff
to help me with developing legislation or advising me or
doing any of that work. There are drafters, government drafters
that can assist with that, but with a bill of
this magnitude, they would only they said, they'd only be
(04:53):
able to do that if it was directed by government,
so they would not be able to assist, they advised me,
they wouldn't be able to assist me to develop that
as a private members bill, So it would be looking
at what other options there would be for us to
be able to do that work in a in a
robust way.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, right, and so those options are really what you
are looking at now, and how you can push this
forward without having, you know, without having those staff to
be able to help you do it exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah. So yeah, and look, I think that you know,
all of us are elected to do what the people
that elected us think is important. So my hope is
that the people who are there in Parliament, my fellow,
you know, representative will want to support this happening because
it's so clear that it's so important to people across
(05:42):
the territory. And I also, I don't say no, it's
not it's not a simple matter. There people have very
strong views about this. There are people in my elector
who I've spent a lot of time We're talking through
their concerns about faith based concerns and other concerns about this.
And I think we can do this work in a
way that can address concerned and be you know, the
(06:03):
appropriate kind of law for the whole Northern Territory if
we do it properly.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Justine, it does sound like there's plenty of work to
happen behind the scenes. Please continue to keep us up
to date. What's on your agenda for the next couple
of weeks of parliamentary settings. It sounds like it's going
to be really busy. I mean, the Chief Minister had
just said she is that she wants to table the
IKAK report relating to the Northern Territory Police Commissioner Michael Murphy.
(06:30):
She's waiting for the advice from the ICAC. I mean,
do you think that is something that needs to be tabled.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mean, I think there's lots of work that needs
to still be done around Ikak, around that issue, around transparence,
and if that's something that you know will help the
community feel trust, then it's something that we should definitely
look at doing. But it's one of many issues that
can be a very big two weeks of Parliament. I
think I heard the Chief Minister say that she's going
to give us a definition of economic development, which I'm
(07:00):
really looking forward to because i'd like to and many
of us. You said many people have been asking about that.
I'm certainly one of them. I believe tomorrow we're going
to be debating the Territory Coordinator Bill, so there's been
a lot of discussion about that. I was on the
scrutiny committee for that. That was a very long process,
many many submissions, ninety five percent of which were against
(07:24):
that bill. We had hearings. It'll be interesting to see
what the government. We did a report to government and
made some recommendations, so it'll be interesting to see what
that bill looks like when it comes to the floor
tomorrow and whether any of those recommendations have been taken
on board. And as the Chief Minister of referenced, I
will be certainly moving amendments tomorrow to try and reflect
(07:50):
the issues and concerns that people have raised around that
bill when we come to debating it.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
What were some of those issues that arose and some
of the things that you know that you think do
need to be included.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, there's a wide range of them. So many people
feel like this bill is not necessary at all, and
it was very interesting as part of the scrutiny committee process.
One of the questions that we asked nearly everyone is
can you give us a tangible example of how this
bill will make a difference, you know, based on something
that's actually happened, And no one could answer that question.
(08:25):
And so I think there's some real and there was
a very interesting comment from one of the agencies. I
think the Planning Commissioner said, this is this is solving
a problem without actually defining what the problem is. And
I think that there's an overall issue about why are
we why are we actually putting this bill in place.
This bill that overrides twenty three acts that are already
(08:46):
there to do a very specific purpose, overrides people who
are skilled and trained and expert in areas who to
make decisions. Puts pretty much unparallel power into two people,
the Chief Minister and the Territory Coordinator, to fast tracked decisions.
(09:07):
There's a lot of concern in the community that those decisions,
not just in the community, in many stakeholders, that those
decisions will be rushed, will be hasty, will not take
into account the long term impacts, will not have all
the evidence that we need to make good decisions. There's
a lot of concerns from particular For example, Local Government
(09:31):
Association believe that their act should not be they should
be excluded from the Territory Coordinator bill. The Heritage Heritage
Act initially was excluded. It's now been included without any
input from the Heritage Council when many people were concerned
about that. There's a whole raft of issues. If people
(09:52):
are interested, the report is online and I'd really encourage
people to have a look at it because it's good
to know the detail of what this government the person
to do and what it might mean for all of us.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
We are fast running out of time, Justine, But what day,
so is it tomorrow that you are expecting that to
all happen.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I believe so and I just said the Chief means
to say we might be there till midnight, so it
might be a very long day. Big so anyone who's interested.
Just like I always say this, but Parliament House is
the people's House. It's there for all of us. Everyone
is welcome there. If you want to see how laws
made in the Northern Territory, come in and check it out.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Absolutely well, Justine Davis, the Independent Member for Johnson. Great
to speak with you this morning. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, thanks, Katie, have a great with you too,
Now there has been a renewed push for the Northern
(00:02):
Territory government to get cracking on voluntary assisted dying laws
in the Northern Territory, which we know we haven't had
for more than twenty seven years. Now. I didn't get
the time to ask the Chief Minister about this this morning,
but we most certainly will now. We also know we
recently caught up with the Council of the Aging here
in the Northern Territory KOTA, who was urging the government
(00:25):
to reenact old laws with a few tweaks while it
continues to work on a new framework after extensive consultation
and the completion of a report by a Voluntary assisted
Dying Advisory Committee. Now, the Member for Johnson, Justine Davis,
has also been working on a motion paper for Parliament,
(00:45):
but there have been some delays that will mean that
it's not going to be introduced until the end of
May sittings. Now the Member, the Independent Member for Johnson
joins me on the line right now. Good morning to you, Justine.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hey kay, how are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, really good? Thank you so much for your time
this morning. Now, talk us through where things are at
with your voluntary assisted dying motion. I know you've been
working on this quite extensively behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah. So, as people may know, last year in Parliament,
the Member for Nightcliff tabled that report that you made
reference to, because that hadn't been tabled in Parliament before,
and I gave notice of emotion to implement the recommendations
of that report, one of which was to develop the
legislation bring back the right to die the right sorry,
(01:33):
the voluntary voluntary sist of dying here in the Northern Territory.
The way it works is that that goes on a
list and we moved through it over time. So it
was due to come up in this sitting of Parliament.
But I've been talking to fellow mlass across Parliament to
see whether there might be a more effective way of
(01:55):
us working on this without mejas bringing it up as
an independent Obviously, if the Government doesn't support it, I
would need to bring it as a private members bill.
I know you made reference to. I think Marshall Peren
proposing a way that we could go forward that might
be quite simple. I think they are really complex issues though,
(02:18):
and I think we need to make sure we do
it right, and I want to make sure that when
we do talk about this in Parliament and do something,
we do it and make sure something's going to happen
from it. It's not just a whole lot of talk.
So I need a little bit more time for that
discussion before we bring it to Parliament.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And so how in how do you envisage this is
going to be brought to parliament? Justin because I think
it's fair enough. You know, for the sake of one
month you're better off or two months you're better off
holding off and getting it right and have more, you know,
a better chance of it being successful.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah. Absolutely, And that's what Parliament should be, shouldn't It
should be our elected represented working together for what we
know in this case vast majority of the community wants
to make it happen in a way that's going to
meet their needs. So I think that if we can
do that, that will be great. I think so people
know the process. That motion is not the legislation. We
(03:13):
will then need to go through the process of developing
the law and then that will come to Parliament as
a bill and it will be voted on at that point,
and that will take some time. That won't be really fast.
I mean, I think we're in a really good position
here now in the Northern Territory. As we know, we
were the first place in Australia to have these laws.
We're now the only place that doesn't. But one of
the things that means is that we can learn from
(03:35):
what everyone else has done across Australia. We can learn
from the work that's been done here through that whole
consultation process, and we can then develop legislation based on
what's best across Australia and what's going to be right
for us here in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So Justine, where is it from your perspective in terms
of the work that you're now having to do behind
the scenes. So I know that you are, as you've said,
you are having to speak you know to people on
right around the Parliament here in the Northern Territory. I
was going to say in government, but it's also government
opposition everybody. You're going to need to really speak to
everybody about this, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, Yeah, that's right, and so that so that's part
of the work. Also talking to you talked about CODA,
so they're talking to you know, with CODA and other
organizations that have been advocating around this issue for a
long time to make sure that all their wisdom and
working this is incorporated in whatever we do from here.
In terms of the process of developing the lawyers, I
(04:32):
said the as an independent, I don't have any staff
to help me with developing legislation or advising me or
doing any of that work. There are drafters, government drafters
that can assist with that, but with a bill of
this magnitude, they would only they said, they'd only be
(04:53):
able to do that if it was directed by government,
so they would not be able to assist, they advised me,
they wouldn't be able to assist me to develop that
as a private members bill, So it would be looking
at what other options there would be for us to
be able to do that work in a in a
robust way.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, right, and so those options are really what you
are looking at now, and how you can push this
forward without having, you know, without having those staff to
be able to help you do it exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah. So yeah, and look, I think that you know,
all of us are elected to do what the people
that elected us think is important. So my hope is
that the people who are there in Parliament, my fellow,
you know, representative will want to support this happening because
it's so clear that it's so important to people across
(05:42):
the territory. And I also, I don't say no, it's
not it's not a simple matter. There people have very
strong views about this. There are people in my elector
who I've spent a lot of time We're talking through
their concerns about faith based concerns and other concerns about this.
And I think we can do this work in a
way that can address concerned and be you know, the
(06:03):
appropriate kind of law for the whole Northern Territory if
we do it properly.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Justine, it does sound like there's plenty of work to
happen behind the scenes. Please continue to keep us up
to date. What's on your agenda for the next couple
of weeks of parliamentary settings. It sounds like it's going
to be really busy. I mean, the Chief Minister had
just said she is that she wants to table the
IKAK report relating to the Northern Territory Police Commissioner Michael Murphy.
(06:30):
She's waiting for the advice from the ICAC. I mean,
do you think that is something that needs to be tabled.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mean, I think there's lots of work that needs
to still be done around Ikak, around that issue, around transparence,
and if that's something that you know will help the
community feel trust, then it's something that we should definitely
look at doing. But it's one of many issues that
can be a very big two weeks of Parliament. I
think I heard the Chief Minister say that she's going
to give us a definition of economic development, which I'm
(07:00):
really looking forward to because i'd like to and many
of us. You said many people have been asking about that.
I'm certainly one of them. I believe tomorrow we're going
to be debating the Territory Coordinator Bill, so there's been
a lot of discussion about that. I was on the
scrutiny committee for that. That was a very long process,
many many submissions, ninety five percent of which were against
(07:24):
that bill. We had hearings. It'll be interesting to see
what the government. We did a report to government and
made some recommendations, so it'll be interesting to see what
that bill looks like when it comes to the floor
tomorrow and whether any of those recommendations have been taken
on board. And as the Chief Minister of referenced, I
will be certainly moving amendments tomorrow to try and reflect
(07:50):
the issues and concerns that people have raised around that
bill when we come to debating it.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
What were some of those issues that arose and some
of the things that you know that you think do
need to be included.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, there's a wide range of them. So many people
feel like this bill is not necessary at all, and
it was very interesting as part of the scrutiny committee process.
One of the questions that we asked nearly everyone is
can you give us a tangible example of how this
bill will make a difference, you know, based on something
that's actually happened, And no one could answer that question.
(08:25):
And so I think there's some real and there was
a very interesting comment from one of the agencies. I
think the Planning Commissioner said, this is this is solving
a problem without actually defining what the problem is. And
I think that there's an overall issue about why are
we why are we actually putting this bill in place.
This bill that overrides twenty three acts that are already
(08:46):
there to do a very specific purpose, overrides people who
are skilled and trained and expert in areas who to
make decisions. Puts pretty much unparallel power into two people,
the Chief Minister and the Territory Coordinator, to fast tracked decisions.
(09:07):
There's a lot of concern in the community that those decisions,
not just in the community, in many stakeholders, that those
decisions will be rushed, will be hasty, will not take
into account the long term impacts, will not have all
the evidence that we need to make good decisions. There's
a lot of concerns from particular For example, Local Government
(09:31):
Association believe that their act should not be they should
be excluded from the Territory Coordinator bill. The Heritage Heritage
Act initially was excluded. It's now been included without any
input from the Heritage Council when many people were concerned
about that. There's a whole raft of issues. If people
(09:52):
are interested, the report is online and I'd really encourage
people to have a look at it because it's good
to know the detail of what this government the person
to do and what it might mean for all of us.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
We are fast running out of time, Justine, But what day,
so is it tomorrow that you are expecting that to
all happen.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I believe so and I just said the Chief means
to say we might be there till midnight, so it
might be a very long day. Big so anyone who's interested.
Just like I always say this, but Parliament House is
the people's House. It's there for all of us. Everyone
is welcome there. If you want to see how laws
made in the Northern Territory, come in and check it out.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Absolutely well, Justine Davis, the Independent Member for Johnson. Great
to speak with you this morning. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, thanks, Katie, have a great with you too,
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