Bill: Voluntary Assisted Dying Amendment Bill 2025

BILL:

‘VOLUNTARY ASSISTED DYING AMENDMENT BILL 2025’

Tuesday, 28 October 2025.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (17:41):

I rise in support of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Amendment Bill 2025.

As has been eloquently said before, the greatness of a society is most accurately measured by the compassion of its members.

This Bill, I think, and the core of the powers that were created in 2017 go to the compassion of our society and the compassion of our State. They go, as has been spoken about earlier, to the right to live, the right of life, the right of compassion in leading a compassionate life and the choice as to when that right to live ends. That is what these laws do and what the voluntary assisted dying legislation does. It goes, to my mind, personally, to the very core of what it means to believe in the power of the individual and empowering freedom of choice.

I was most profoundly affected in these matters as a full-time carer of a family member who died of a terminal illness. It is an issue that I have not been able to talk about since it occurred. This is the first time I have been able to talk about it. Going through those circumstances gave me the opportunity, and I use that word very deliberately – opportunity. My family member died of a very serious terminal illness, and every week I would take her to have chemo treatment and sit with her and the other patients who were going through the chemo treatment each week. I would sit with some dozen people each week and talk to them about life and talk to them about these issues. I learned more about life through going through that experience, not only with that family member but the other people who were going through those treatments, than probably anything – other than when my children were born. I think that they were both the most defining things that I have learned about life.

This legislation takes on a very conservative set of laws, and I understand why the system that was put in place in 2017 was very conservative. I spoke at length with my predecessor, the former member for Brighton, as the legislation moved through the Chamber, as to how that legislation was eventually passed and the compromises that were reached in the Upper House to ensure that that system was put in place. Those compromises enabled a piece of legislation that we as a society should be proud to know exists as an option and as a choice for people.

There were choices that needed to be made to ensure that legislation passed. Since then I am sure that many people have deliberately worked with this Government and the Parliament more broadly to talk about how we could make that system see itself as originally intended, to ensure that people who frankly deserve a right of access to treatment have a right of access to treatment and to ensure that the compromises – there is no other word for it – that needed to be made in that original piece of legislation could be addressed.

We look at a Bill today that has come about because of a review that took place five years after the original system was put into place – by any measure a reasonable measure of time – to consider the operation of the original legislation and look at improvements that may need to be made or opportunities to ensure that system is best placed. That is what this House is considering today: a set of frankly not overly progressive measures, measures that are incremental, are common sense and enable a right of access.

Before going into some of them specifically, you can see with this Bill and the debate that is occurring in this Chamber and more broadly in terms of the public debate how sensitively the community has responded to this issue being raised, how the issue has been reported upon and today how the debate in this Chamber has occurred, because this Bill, at its core, is reasonable in the way that after five years Amendments are being proposed that I think will allow, if passed, a system to exist in Victoria that we can all be proud of in terms of the people who need it having the choice of access.

Whether it is a doctor providing information or referring on, my personal view is that medical professionals have a duty of care to their patients. Just in the same way that I do not think a doctor should have the right to not treat a patient for one particular illness or not provide advice on one particular illness or medical attention they may need, my personal view is that they should not have a choice to opt out of providing advice where it is needed. I feel very strongly about and respect health professionals more broadly in a way that I think it is a strawman’s argument frankly to argue that health professionals will misuse the voluntary assisted dying legislation. Health professionals, at their absolute essence, do the job more than by just doing the job – they do the job because they believe in caring for people. They believe in helping people. They believe in being with people and providing their best advice to people. Medical professionals should not have the right to opt out, and health professionals more broadly should be trusted to provide the best advice to their patients.

There are a number of other minor Amendments which frankly had they been in place in the original piece of legislation and had I been here at that time I would have supported in terms of residency and in terms of the changes from nine to five days. These matters are – I do not want to simplify – fairly described as common sense. In terms of right of access, I do not think people should be disqualified because they are long-term residents but not citizens. That just does not make sense. A compassionate society certainly I do not think would draw that line in the sand.

So, I think this legislation does what it unfortunately could not do initially but on reflection, after a five-year review, brings about in a methodical, reasonable, small-steps sense, and I will be supporting it in its original form. There are no Amendments that have been moved that I see as ones that I would support. I do intend to support the Bill, as I said earlier, in its original form. I am not aware of any Government Amendments yet, though obviously they have the right to consider the Amendments in the House, and I would look at any of those as they progressed.

But if I can go back to the original two points, this legislation, to me, and this system is about a right of life. When you have held the hand of someone who is choosing the timeline of their life and they are doing so because of the difficulties they are facing, I think we can hold our heads up high as a State in terms of the compassion that we have as a broader society, and this Parliament should stand tall in having passed that original legislation. I do very much hope that we can collectively pass this legislation today.