Mr NEVILLE(6.11 p.m.) —It also grieves me to have to disagree with the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair), whose contributions to this House I respect immensely. Like the honourable member for Wide Bay (Mr Truss), I see a great distinction between this legislation and the Tasmanian privacy legislation. In that instance, we had an international convention being imposed through the Commonwealth on the people of Tasmania. There could be no more virulent form of usurping states rights than that.

In this instance, we have a different circumstance. This is a matter of Australians speaking about an Australian issue. While I do not for a moment question the right of Northern Territorians to participate in that debate, I do not think they have an overriding position whereby they should force their will on the whole of the Commonwealth.

This is a defining moment. You cannot talk about something such as euthanasia and say that it will be confined. Quite frankly, it will not. The law in the Northern Territory calls for a doctor, a specialist for the complaint in which the patient seeking euthanasia is suffering and a psychiatrist to assess the person's mental capacity to ask for death. Even while this debate has been going on in this parliament, there are some in the Northern Territory saying that the use of a specialist is becoming too onerous a requirement.

That makes the very point that I made in the other chamber when discussing this issue, which is this: once something as absolute as euthanasia is approved in any part of the Commonwealth, be it at Norfolk Island, our least populated legislature, or New South Wales, which is the largest, a tone is set for the whole of Australia. From that point onwards, the boundaries will be pushed out. There is no shadow of doubt in my mind that that will be the consequences of it. This recent circumstance in the Northern Territory, where a specialist's being called in is regarded as onerous, is a reflection of what would happen once this legislation were approved. We have heard of the experience in Holland, where between one-third and one-half of those who have been subjected to euthanasia did not die of their own free will. To me, that is horrifying and the start of a new dark age.

Kevin Andrews has proposed for the Commonwealth parliament, firstly, to give some collective leadership to this nation and, secondly, to operate quite properly on section 122 of our constitution where we believe that a law in one of the territories does not meet the standards befitting this nation. Having said that, I in no way wish to resile from my support of statehood for the Northern Territory, but this issue before us today is far too important. I think that we should, in all conscience, oppose the amendment moved by the right honourable member for New England and give our full and unfettered support to the Andrews legislation.