Set to Re-Legalise Euthanasia, Without the Safeguards Its Own Review Advised
The NT is about to re-legalise euthanasia, thirty years after being the first in the world to do it.
Its own parliamentary review said don't add a time limit or a gag clause. The government added both.
This episode covers the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill bill, set for a vote in the NT Legislative Assembly during the August 25 to 27 sitting week. It traces the Territory's unique history as the first place in the world to legalise voluntary assisted dying in 1995, before the federal government overturned that law two years later. The episode examines two provisions the government's own parliamentary inquiry recommended against, a twelve-month prognosis limit and a restriction on doctors raising the topic first, and looks at concerns raised by both euthanasia advocates and an Independent First Nations MLA. It also covers the state of palliative care access in the Territory, a gap the episode argues is getting far less attention than the bill itself.

