Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Sixth sitting)

Tom Gordon Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. I am sorry, Meredith, but we have to move on to the next question.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

Q My question is probably more for Alex. When you were coming to the criteria and the safeguards in the Bill in your state, how did that then interplay with other regions and states nearby? Obviously, in the UK the Bill that we are looking at would be applicable to England and Wales. Scotland has its own assisted dying Bill, which is happening at the minute, and we will hear about that later on. Is there information you can share? Can you talk about how different states and regions interplay with each other when they have assisted dying laws?

Alex Greenwich: New South Wales was last in the nation when it came to adopting voluntary assisted dying, and that was actually beneficial because we were able to draw on the experiences of particularly Victoria and Western Australia to make sure that things like the gag clause were not in place. With all respect to the introducer of the Bill, as a result of the Australian experience this is not a revolutionary law reform. It has been tried and tested, we have appropriate safeguards in place throughout Australia, and they work.

[Tom Gordon]

On that—

[The Chair]

Order. I am sorry, but you are only allowed one question.