David Seymour: ACT Leader on euthanasia oversights

Two former members of a committee tasked with checking over assisted deaths to ensure the law worked as it should say the system is so broken they wouldn't have known if someone had wrongly died. 

Doctors Jane Greville and Dana Wensley repeatedly raised concerns about incomplete information about a patient's health and the risk of coercion. 

In one case, a patient with suspected dementia who could not speak English was approved for assisted dying without a translator in the room. 

ACT Leader David Seymour was behind the End of Life Choice Act and joins Jack Tame to discuss how this happened. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Two former members of a committee that is tasked with
checking over assisted deaths to ensure that the law has
worked as it should say the system is broken and
they wouldn't have known if someone had wrongly died. Doctors
Jane Greville and Una Wensley repeated repeatedly raised concerns about
complete information regarding a patient's health and the risk of coercion.
In one case, a patient with suspected dementia who couldn't

(00:22):
speak English was apparently approved for assisted dying without a
translator in the room. Act leader David Seymour was, of
course a major proponent for the End of Life Choice
Act and is with us now, God, A good.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Afternoon, Good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
What do you think of these concerns?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, first of all, these are two people that sound
somewhat aggrieved, and I'd want to know the full story.
But on the face of it, the law that I
helped make five years ago said that a physician must
communicate with the person who's seeking a sisted dying at

(00:58):
regular intervals suitable to the progression of their illness. Now
it is, I guess possible that in some cases you
might not communicate verbally, such as if that person was
unable to talk. However, you'd certainly want to inquire and

(01:19):
investigate how somebody could do that if they didn't have
the same language or a translator. But I think it's
a little unfair to say that there's no way to
investigate that. I just checked the annual report for the
year two during this year and it says that there
are twenty two complaints. There are three that remain ongoing

(01:41):
at the time of the twenty twenty four report, and
of those, by far, the most common complaint was people
being obstructed from trying to get access to his sister dying.
When they say, oh, there's not enough information and there's
no way that people and find out what's going on
through this process. Well, you know, people frequently make complaints

(02:05):
overwhelmingly that are closed in a short period of time,
and mostly actually people are not being able to get
access to assisted dying when they want.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
It to be clear, though, physicians don't have to be
involved in end of life choice if they choose not
to and an assisted dying if they choose not to
to be on this panel operating in the roles that
these two doctors were operating in. Do they have to
be supporters of the Act in the first place.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
No, it would be improper to ask about someone's political
position before appointing them to any government entity. But you
would hope that if they stepped up, then they would
at least be an agreement that it's a legitimate choice
for people to make, and prepared to administer the law

(02:53):
to the best of their abilities.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, that's my point is it's not necessarily a political perspective,
but rather a q of conscience, right, And it's not
your understanding that in order to be on this oversight
committee that they actually had to necessarily support end of
life choice and principle.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, no, Look, I've actually been involved in appointing new
people to the committee. I've had people put forward by
the Ministry of Health and recommended to me, and I've
certainly had a look at their credentials and what sort
of qualifications they have, whether they've made any public statements

(03:32):
for or against it, Because you certainly wouldn't want to
appoint someone who was one of these died and the
Wall opponents who sought to be appointed in order to
obstruct people from accessing what they have a right to
access under the law. But I certainly would have thought
that the key thing is are they capable of doing
the job and are they doing it in good faith?

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Doctor Greville says that the committee was quote restrained to
the point of irrelevance. I know you said that the
Act was imperfect when it was introduced. Are these changes
you would make to the committee's overside?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Look, I think it's important to acknowledge that one of
the things I put in the Act is the need
to have a review after the first three years and
then every five years after that. So the first review
is happening now because the Act came into force in
November twenty twenty one, So the report will come out
next month on the first three years. And I mean,

(04:27):
I'm not responsible for the bill anymore. It's been passed
its own by everybody. But I certainly personally would be
be open to listening to what people say and making changes.
I just if you don't mind me just challenging one
thing I've said there when I said it was imperfect,
I actually think that we made it overly restrictive, in
particular for political reasons to get the numbers to pass it.

(04:51):
I actually put a six month requirement, so you have
to have two doctors say you're likely to die within
six months. There's some people with conditions such as Huntington's
mode neuron disease long term degenerative diseases who won't die
within six months, but that just means that they're suffering
even more. I think they should have a choice. And
Todd Stevenson, whom you interviewed on your TV show a

(05:15):
few weeks ago, has actually brought a bill to Parliament
which I hope will be debated soon to actually widen
access in that regard. So when you say, I say
it's imperfect, that's the that's the criticism I have my own.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, no, sorry, I didn't mean. I wasn't trying to
resume you misrep visin you. I mean, yeah, you were
pretty clear about that at the time and felt that
that was a compromise that allowed the allowed the builder
pass into law. Hey, just before we let you go,
O CR thoughts.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Well, New Zealanders have finally got off the nauseating rollercoaster
of fiscal and monetary policy. I thought your intro was
very good. It's the start of relief, but it is
still going to take a while to kick in, and
people are making choices about when to refix their mortgage
rates and so on. For my money, I'd go with

(06:04):
a six month fix and just hedge and see where
they go for the next six months. But you know,
I don't think people should take that sort of financial
advice from politicians, just as a disclaimer. I think what's
most important now is that we do our job and
continue to tighten our belt and find efficiencies as a government.
Because every time the government overspends or waste money that

(06:28):
is competing with the private sector with households and businesses,
and they're really hurting. So we still have our job
to do containing our spending. I think you'll see ongoing
what's trained in the next budget that allows the Reserve
Bank to stop this roller coaster where I think they
pushed us too high for too long, but they had

(06:49):
to because they'd gone too low during COVID, And now
we're getting off that roller coaster at the other end,
marcious and poor for the experience.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
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Speaker 2 (07:02):
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