Brown Peter: Death with Dignity Bill — First Reading 
Brown Peter: Death with Dignity Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7482] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I move  
That the Death with Dignity Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time it is my intention to move that this bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. At this moment though I want to start by telling the House what this bill is not about. It is not about euthanasia. Euthanasia is defined as the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable painful disease. There is no mention in that definition of who will administer it and no mention of whether the patient wants it requests it or is even aware that it is happening. This bill is not about any of that. 
This bill is about voluntary euthanasia. There is a world of difference between the two. This bill is about me being able to make a decision for myself—not my wife not my doctor not my family not the hospital; nobody but me being able to make a decision for myself. Equally so it is about every adult New Zealander being able to make a decision for himself or herself—nobody else; just the individual adult New Zealander. But there are two provisos. Firstly the individual must be of sound mind and be able to make a rational easily understood decision. Secondly he or she must be terminally and/or incurably ill. Those are the two provisos before somone can make that decision. 
The people we are talking about may be few in number but they could well be experiencing much pain—much pain at a very vulnerable stage in their lives. Equally so they could have lost most of their independence and be on the verge of losing it all. Or they could be in the category where the pain is controlled but their bodies are disintegrating before their very eyes. So what do they have to do? Under this bill they have to get a medical practitioner’s agreement that they are in such a condition. Then they have to get the agreement of a second medical practitioner who agrees fully with the first diagnosis. Then they have to get the agreement of a psychiatrist to say that they are of sound mind and not suffering from a mental illness like depression and that they are capable of making a rational decision about their own future. Finally they have to see a counsellor whose responsibility is to outline the full implications of their request so that he or she can ensure that patients know what they are requesting to happen. Under this bill the medical practitioners in particular have to ask patients whether they have consulted their family. That is mandatory. It is not mandatory for very good reasons that patients have to consult their family. 
So if that is whom we are talking about how many people are we talking about? The state of Oregon in the USA has had similar legislation for 5 years and in that 5 years 128 people have taken advantage of death with dignity. One hundred and ninety-eight applied but only 128 went through with it—that is 60-odd percent. That tells me that for 30-odd percent the stress was removed from them and that that was sufficient. Oregon is a state with a population of about 3.5 million people. We have 4 million people so we can expect somewhere around 30 people per year to want to take advantage of this legislation. 
What is this legislation? First and foremost it stipulates the criteria a patient must go through—that is the two doctors a psychiatrist and a counsellor. That is a very important part of this bill. Secondly the bill provides for an advance directive whereby fit and able people can make their views known in writing. So should they become inflicted with some dreadful disease and not be capable of making a decision they could have made the decision beforehand. If they are injured in a car crash or contract Alzheimer’s disease or some sort of illness so that they cannot make a decision then the decision that they made some years before—or some time before—must be accepted. That is the second important aspect of this bill. The third important aspect is that I am not asking anybody here in the House to make the final decision. This bill should it pass all stages will go before the public of New Zealand so that the public can make the decision by means of a binding referendum. That is what New Zealanders want on this type of issue. It is controversial but it is also sensitive and it is very very delicate. 
I believe that everybody who has led a decent law-abiding life is entitled when their time has come to die with dignity—to die in the comfort of their friends and family and not to die a suffering lingering death. That means not only being pain free but also dying in a peaceful and dignified manner. Currently the medical profession will tell us that it cannot address the concerns of everybody. In a letter it produced the hospice association which opposes this bill stated: “However when the storm calms”—that is this debate—“the fact remains that pain and physical symptoms can be treated adequately by hospice specialists for the vast majority of patients.” This bill is to help the people who are not embraced by those words “vast majority”. Principally this bill is aimed at assisting those folk. I am a firm believer in the hospice movement. I believe it does a great job and I have the utmost admiration for the people who work in the industry. I support the industry being funded exceedingly well. I do not see this bill as being in conflict with the hospice movement but as compatible with it. 
Another concern that comes up from time to time is that voluntary euthanasia will lead to euthanasia. There is no will for euthanasia—I outlined right at the beginning of my speech what euthanasia is all about. There is no will amongst the public amongst politicians or in the political world to introduce euthanasia and the protections in this bill for the patient are pretty stringent. If they not stringent enough then the select committee can make them tighter. 
Finally I would like to address a concern that I wrestled with for a long time: is this bill compatible with Christian beliefs? I pride myself if that is the right word on being a man who has lived his life with Christian values.I found out I was a Christian when I was an 18-year-old cadet in the British merchant navy in a storm in the North Atlantic. It was a huge storm with waves as big as one could imagine—probably bigger than this Parliament House—and the ship started to break up. I found out then that I believed in God. So it was important to me that this bill was compatible with those beliefs and I believe that it is. I am conscious that the apostle Paul once said “And now abideth faith hope and charity these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” In the modern Bible that word “charity” is changed to love. When asked what were the most important commandments Jesus said the first two: love your God and love your neighbour as you love yourself. I say to people with Christian beliefs that they can support this bill. I ask them please not to let their faith blind their compassion.