Senator BOSWELL (Leader of the National Party of Australia) (1.26 p.m.) —Two weeks ago I raised the issue of euthanasia during a matter of public interest debate in the Senate. This was as a result of the rights of the terminally ill bill passed in the Northern Territory Assembly on May 25. I spoke of the concerns felt by many groups not only in Australia but around the world about euthanasia. I spoke about the importance of the duty of governments to safeguard life and the impossibility of ensuring that all euthanasia would be voluntary. I call for a greater attention to the need for palliative care and health research services.

  Today I am pleased to be standing with my colleagues here in the Senate representing all sides of parliament, all parties and representing the great spectrum of Australian community. I believe this is an indication of the cross-community resistance to legalised killing, whether that killing results from a compassionate motive or a belief in an individual autonomous right. Euthanasia is not simply a state issue, its scope and nature demand a response from the federal parliamentarians and other community leaders. In addition, the Commonwealth Medicare program would be involved in euthanasia death, as confirmed by Senator Crowley in responding to my question some time ago. Medicare funding agreements, rebates and pharmaceutical benefits would subsidise the killings.

  During debate on the bill in the Northern Territory, the opposition leader, Mr Ede, also made reference to the role of federal government in drawing the regulations prescribing the manner and substances to be used in administrating death. He said:

The administrator or whoever will go back to the government and the government will go to the minister, the minister will go within his department to find the expertise which is able to say that these are the guidelines.

They probably will not have to develop them either, and it will go to the federal government. With the federal government, there will be a clause that will say that these are the particular sets of words that the territory government is looking for. They will be sent up here and published in the NT government Gazette.

While the territory government has passed such a law allowing the killing of patients, it still requires the federal government to assist before it can come up with the fundamental regulations about how a person is to be killed. I hope the health minister's representative in the Senate, Senator Crowley, is listening because I would like her comments on the role of the federal government drawing up killing techniques and regulations for the territory.

  I now want to summarise some facts about the passage of the rights of the terminally ill bill. The original bill has 17 clauses and 45 amendments were agreed. The final bill has 21 clauses. It is peppered with the Chairman's amendments to make it all hang together in as orderly a manner as possible. Finally, I draw the attention of the Senate to the schedule of the bill. I seek leave to table that document.

  Leave granted.

Senator BOSWELL —The schedule is entitled `Request for assistance to end my life in a humane and dignified manner.' It is to be signed and dated by the patient. This is followed by two declarations of witnesses where there is a space for the signature of the patient's medical practitioner and a second medical practitioner. Where an interpreter is used, there is another declaration to be signed by a qualified interpreter. There is no requirement on this form for the witnesses to date their declaration or to do more than scribble their signature. There is no requirement that they spell out their name or provide a medical practitioner number. There is no provision to register the place of address at which the request or declaration was made.

  A roadworthiness certificate has more formal signing requirements than a request to end a human life. Firstly, a roadworthiness certificate has a unique number. The approved examiner has a licence number which must be quoted. It is dated all over the place and the address is clearly stated, together with its own approval number. Moreover, the approved examiner must certify that the provisions of the relevant act have been complied with. The euthanasia schedule demands no such certification from the patient's medical practitioner. The second medical practitioner is required merely to be `satisfied that the conditions of section 7 of the act have or will be complied with'. Surely the disposal of human life demands more formal procedures than the disposal of a used motor vehicle!

  I cannot believe that such a document will stand up in a court of law. Witnessing officers to a mortgage document must provide a signature, print their full names and describe their qualifications and the date of the document. Where a will is typed on more than one sheet of paper, it is a usual and desirable practice to have the foot of each page signed by the testator and the witnesses to counter a fraudulent attempt to interpolate pages into the document. Unless the request to end life is supervised by a solicitor, will this practice be followed, and will there be careful checking of signatures and dates?

  I understand the Northern Territory's desire to simplify a form for an ill patient, but it is life we are talking about and that demands the utmost care, scrutiny, safeguards and formal witnessing procedures. John K. De Groot's Wills, probate and administration practice advises that `for future identification purposes, if necessary, both witnesses should print their names, occupations, and addresses after their signatures.' There is nothing on the request to end life form which would suggest the witnesses do this. The request form is integral to the euthanasia practice. No matter what else is said and done in the act or anywhere else, it is this form that is at the centre. If it fails to withstand legal scrutiny, then the act will be fatally flawed.

  I would like to conclude by quoting from The manual of Queensland succession law by W.A. Lee, which I think is a useful guide on this issue. He says:

In modern law, prescriptions of form are invariably statutory and are justified for a number of reasons. The formalities prescribed for the making and execution of wills perform a variety of different functions. First, they perform an evidentiary function. All formalities serve as probative safeguards.

Later, he says:

Evidence of due execution is best supplied by the inclusion in the will of a formal attestation clause.

In this case, a formal attestation clause does not exist. There is no clause saying, for example, `Signed by the above-named patient in the presence of us, both present at the same time who, in her presence and at her request and in the presence of each other, have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.' I am not a lawyer. There were two lawyers in this debate and there are many here in the parliament. But I raise these issues because, whether you are for or against euthanasia, I am sure that everyone would want the tightest possible safeguards when signing away a human life.