BACKGROUND:
On 29th November 2008, Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region attended a commemoration event for the Holodomor -- the starvation of Ukraine.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below.
HANSARD:
Title: Ukrainian holocaust: commemoration
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Members Statements
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 2 December 2008
Page: 5254
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- On Saturday I had the honour of attending a commemoration event for the Holodomor -- the starvation of Ukraine; I was accompanied by Mr Guy and Mr Finn. The Holodomor was the deliberate theft of food from Ukraine with the intention of starving to death millions of people. Unfortunately between 7 million and 10 million people -- men, women, children and babies -- starved to death as a result of those actions conducted by the Soviet Union.
The ceremony on Saturday was at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in North Melbourne and was presided over by Bishop Peter Stasiuk. Also represented there by Reverend Vasyl Kasian was the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. It was
Page 5255
organised by Stefan Romaniw and Victor Rudewych, who represent Ukrainian organisations.
It seems to me that a crime like that against humanity needs to be acknowledged and remembered. Perhaps even more importantly, the only honour we can do such victims is to take from their suffering and deaths a dedication that such a horrific crime against humanity will never happen again.
Friday, 19 December 2008
Hansard 2008-12-03 Skills Training: Reform
BACKGROUND:
On 10th September 2008 Mr Hall MLC for Eastern Victoria Region moved the following motion:
"That, in respect of the recently announced skills reforms, this house calls on the government to explain to the Parliament and the people of Victoria the following --
(1) the number of Victorian students that missed out on a funded training place last year;
(2) how increasing student fees will attract more people to participate in vocational training particularly at the diploma and advanced diploma level;
(3) how much revenue is expected to be raised by increased fees and the purpose to which that revenue will be put;
(4) whether the $139 million designated as 'contestable funding' is new money or whether it is a transference of current money already allocated to the delivery of diploma and advanced diploma places;
(5) how an income-contingent loan system will encourage more students to take up training;
(6) how the government intends to address the predicted shortfall of 123 000 diploma and advanced diploma qualified workers by 2015;
(7) how the government expects to find an additional 900 TAFE staff and 500 non-teaching staff when TAFE teaching salaries are almost $20 000 lower than their counterparts in NSW and well below that of teachers in the schools sector;
(8) how a competitive training system will work and its impact on training providers;
(9) why the cost of training is being transferred from the state to the student;
(10) why the government continues to underfund training in Victoria by 15 per cent compared with the Australian states average;
(11) why those who have to retrain will be ineligible for a government-funded place;
(12) why the government is abolishing concessional fees for diploma and advanced diploma courses; and
(13) how much is being spent on television advertising to promote the reform package".
The debate continued and concluded on 3rd December 2008.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: SKILLS TRAINING: REFORM
House: COUNCIL
Activity:
Members:
Date: 3 December 2008
Page: 5320
3 December 2008 COUNCIL
...
Page 5330
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- As a person with some experience of teaching in the TAFE sector I feel obliged to say a few words about the motion. Although I only taught in TAFE for a short time it was clear to me that TAFE students were extremely well motivated and were at a surprising level of academic ability.
Perhaps people do not realise -- I did not assume -- that people who may have left
Page 5331
school earlier than some others are often nevertheless very good at studying academic subjects. TAFE catered to those students well as well as offering a large number of practical skills to young people. It was quite inspiring to look at a lot of people who went to TAFE after work -- they did a full day at work and then went and studied at night to improve their skills base. I felt admiration for them, and I thought the TAFE system catered to their needs well.
I also noticed at the time and have noticed since that TAFE jobs seem to be conspicuous by their absence in terms of advertisements and so forth. Looking through newspapers you rarely see a job in TAFE, because there are not many available. TAFE seems to be treated as the poor relation in the education system of Victoria. Although many TAFE teachers are well skilled and experienced, they receive a rate of pay which is much lower than that of those who teach in secondary schools, even though their skill level and expertise in particular subjects is probably often higher.
It seems to me that this government undervalues, and has undervalued for a long time, practical skills in education. This is perhaps demonstrated by what the Kirner government did to technical schools in Victoria, which was to abolish them -- much to the great cost of many young people, particularly those who were not especially academically oriented. TAFE does a great job imparting practical skills to many Victorians, and it deserves a lot better from the government than it has been getting.
...
Page 5333
...
House divided on motion:
Ayes, 21
...
Kavanagh, Mr
...
Noes, 18
...
Motion agreed to.
On 10th September 2008 Mr Hall MLC for Eastern Victoria Region moved the following motion:
"That, in respect of the recently announced skills reforms, this house calls on the government to explain to the Parliament and the people of Victoria the following --
(1) the number of Victorian students that missed out on a funded training place last year;
(2) how increasing student fees will attract more people to participate in vocational training particularly at the diploma and advanced diploma level;
(3) how much revenue is expected to be raised by increased fees and the purpose to which that revenue will be put;
(4) whether the $139 million designated as 'contestable funding' is new money or whether it is a transference of current money already allocated to the delivery of diploma and advanced diploma places;
(5) how an income-contingent loan system will encourage more students to take up training;
(6) how the government intends to address the predicted shortfall of 123 000 diploma and advanced diploma qualified workers by 2015;
(7) how the government expects to find an additional 900 TAFE staff and 500 non-teaching staff when TAFE teaching salaries are almost $20 000 lower than their counterparts in NSW and well below that of teachers in the schools sector;
(8) how a competitive training system will work and its impact on training providers;
(9) why the cost of training is being transferred from the state to the student;
(10) why the government continues to underfund training in Victoria by 15 per cent compared with the Australian states average;
(11) why those who have to retrain will be ineligible for a government-funded place;
(12) why the government is abolishing concessional fees for diploma and advanced diploma courses; and
(13) how much is being spent on television advertising to promote the reform package".
The debate continued and concluded on 3rd December 2008.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: SKILLS TRAINING: REFORM
House: COUNCIL
Activity:
Members:
Date: 3 December 2008
Page: 5320
3 December 2008 COUNCIL
...
Page 5330
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- As a person with some experience of teaching in the TAFE sector I feel obliged to say a few words about the motion. Although I only taught in TAFE for a short time it was clear to me that TAFE students were extremely well motivated and were at a surprising level of academic ability.
Perhaps people do not realise -- I did not assume -- that people who may have left
Page 5331
school earlier than some others are often nevertheless very good at studying academic subjects. TAFE catered to those students well as well as offering a large number of practical skills to young people. It was quite inspiring to look at a lot of people who went to TAFE after work -- they did a full day at work and then went and studied at night to improve their skills base. I felt admiration for them, and I thought the TAFE system catered to their needs well.
I also noticed at the time and have noticed since that TAFE jobs seem to be conspicuous by their absence in terms of advertisements and so forth. Looking through newspapers you rarely see a job in TAFE, because there are not many available. TAFE seems to be treated as the poor relation in the education system of Victoria. Although many TAFE teachers are well skilled and experienced, they receive a rate of pay which is much lower than that of those who teach in secondary schools, even though their skill level and expertise in particular subjects is probably often higher.
It seems to me that this government undervalues, and has undervalued for a long time, practical skills in education. This is perhaps demonstrated by what the Kirner government did to technical schools in Victoria, which was to abolish them -- much to the great cost of many young people, particularly those who were not especially academically oriented. TAFE does a great job imparting practical skills to many Victorians, and it deserves a lot better from the government than it has been getting.
...
Page 5333
...
House divided on motion:
Ayes, 21
...
Kavanagh, Mr
...
Noes, 18
...
Motion agreed to.
Hansard 2008-10-09 Abortion Bill 2008
BACKGROUND:
Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region took a leading role in the Legislative Council in opposing the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 to decriminalise abortion and he received a thunderous standing ovation from the public gallery unprecedented in the recent history of the Victorian Parliament at the conclusion of his exceptional speech opposing abortion which took approximately three hours. The President of the House complimented Mr. Kavanagh on the amount of effort he put into the speech.
The Abortion Bill 2008 allows abortions up to 24 weeks for any reason and for no reason. Beyond 24 weeks, two abortionists merely need to say that an abortion is “appropriate”.
This legislation further requires doctors who have a conscientious objection to abortion to nevertheless refer pregnant women to other doctors who are “known not to have a conscientious objection” and even to perform abortions in some circumstances.
A majority of MPs, including Members from every political party (except the DLP) supported this legislation. A majority of Upper House MPs also voted against amendments which Mr Kavanagh proposed in Parliament, to:
1. Ban partial birth abortion - the killing of babies as they are being born (illegal throughout the USA),
2. Require pain relief for babies being aborted (there is overwhelming evidence that abortion is excruciatingly painful), and
3. Require abortionists to care for babies born alive after “failed” abortions.
Mr Kavanagh supported other amendments proposed by other Members such as allowing conscientious objection for medical practitioners though none of these amendments gained majority support.
Mr Kavanagh is disturbed that Victorian MPs supported the killing of the unborn and the partially born, opposed assistance to those born alive after unsuccessful abortions and even voted against pain relief.
Below is the last part of Mr Kavanagh’s speech in Parliament on Hansard during the second reading. The bill was later passed unamended at the third reading after all amendments failed during the committee phase of the debate.
The full text of Mr Kavanagh’s speech in Parliament on Hansard during the second reading and committee phases of the debate before its passage at the third reading can be found by entering the relevant search criteria at: http://tex.parliament.vic.gov.au/bin/texhtmlt?form=VicHansard.adv.
HANSARD:
Title: ABORTION LAW REFORM BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 9 October 2008 P
age: 4093
...
SECOND READING
Debate resumed.
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria)
…
Page 4116
...
…We might consider the point of conscientious objection or the removal of conscientious objection rights with an analogy. Imagine, for example, that we lived in one of the states of the United States in which there is legal execution of prisoners. We might consider what our reaction would be in the event of a person being asked by a state official, a doctor, to participate in the execution of a convicted felon. I think we would all be horrified. The situation is indeed analogous, except for one thing: it is much worse in Victoria, because we know the victim will be entirely innocent. There is nobody more innocent than an unborn person. In the
Page 4117
state in America where that might happen the victim would have to be convicted first of a very serious offence of taking other people's lives. This situation in Victoria is much worse than the one I suggest might be analogous in the United States, and it applies not only to physicians and medical practitioners but also to nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals.
This bill would allow even partial-birth abortions, a gruesome form of homicide that is illegal throughout the United States. The constitutionality of this law in America has recently been upheld in the United States Supreme Court, in spite of a general prohibition on laws against abortion, as determined in the infamous case of Roe v. Wade.
Partial-birth abortions are committed late in a pregnancy. They involve almost removing the baby from the mother with forceps, feet first.
It is done this way, feet first, because if the baby were to be born in the normal way, head first, she would be born too quickly to kill her before she was fully born. While her head is still in the birth canal an instrument is inserted into her brain through her upper neck and her brains are vacuumed out through the incision. The baby is then fully removed from the mother's body, dead. Such a procedure, it has been declared by the United States Congress, is never medically necessary, but it is already being carried out in Victoria. Passage of this bill would increase the frequency of this practice and lend to it the authority of the state of Victoria.
This bill offers no protection to the woman or the unborn. There is no cooling-off period, no counselling, no warnings of the harm that is done, not only to the unborn, but often to the women as well and also to the babies they have later, after the abortion. There is no provision for pain relief for the unborn, though there is evidence that many of the unborn feel the pain of an abortion to an extent that we cannot understand because they develop the ability to feel pain before birth but do not develop the capacity to express pain until after birth.
There is no restriction in this bill on sex selection abortions, which the United Nations says, together with infanticide, have recently killed 60 million unborn girls because they were female. Most of them have been in East Asia and far eastern parts of Europe. However, it is also already happening in parts of the United States, and we can be confident that it is also happening in Australia, including in Victoria.
I would like to propose some alternatives to the present bill. In present circumstances a program of effectively implemented criminal sanctions against abortion would indeed face formidable obstacles.
These include parts of the profits of the lucrative abortion industry which are being directed into political donations for the purpose of freeing its practitioners of restraints. Such obstacles would also include, above all, the profoundly misguided but vehement denials of the humanity of the unborn, contrary to all scientific evidence, and a belief by many that a right to life of the unborn is a matter of choice by others, even though the exercise of such a choice takes away every choice from somebody else.
Nevertheless, there are actions which the government can and should take to address this problem. The first is to retain in-principle legal protection for all people, including the unborn. Although by no means sufficient, it is necessary. Instituting a program of counselling and intervention by state agencies and support for non-government organisations would help women who need it to allow their children to stay alive. It would also be a very appropriate response to the problem.
We should consider clearly informing all women considering abortion of the option of open adoption, which exists in Victoria. This would allow them to give birth to their baby and allow other people to care for their baby most of the time, but also enable them to retain a relationship with that baby for the rest of their life. This is an attractive option that women who are considering an abortion should be told about.
Furthermore, we should consider a public education program which demonstrates the humanity of the unborn and which adequately warns of the dangers of abortion to women. A public education campaign that makes it clear that the unborn are human beings is also a necessary response to the present situation.
If you go into a government office in Victoria you will see posters about such campaigns for lots of people, such as the campaign asking us to see the person, not the disability. Why not have such a campaign for the unborn also?
It would not require criminal prosecutions or putting people in jail, but it would be likely to have an effect. If such programs have no effect, why do we have the programs that exist already for other people?
Young women who have nowhere to go should be offered accommodation and help. We have programs already for women who are victims of domestic violence. Why not provide a similar sort of help for women who are in search of the help needed for them to keep their baby instead of aborting their baby? We should also ban partial-birth abortion. In respect of this particular bill proponents might well claim that the situation is now so bad from the unborn's
Page 4118
point of view. They might ask: what is the point of opposing the legalisation of abortion? It is a reasonable question to which there are several answers. Firstly, passage of this bill will cause even more unborn people to be aborted. I hope Mr Hall, in particular, pays attention to these points, because he claimed that he was voting for the bill on the basis that it will not cause more abortions.
Existing laws, though frequently flouted, provide a last line of defence for those women attempting to resist pressure from their mothers, husbands, boyfriends or others to have an abortion. Our current laws allow such women the powerful defence of correctly asserting that abortion is illegal.
The VLRC was charged with recommending decriminalisation in a way that would not increase the number of abortions in Victoria.
Its greatest failure is in recommending three options, all of which would remove the prohibition on abortion inherent in our current in-principle legal support for the unborn while doing nothing whatever to replace that deterrent effect of the authority of the letter of the law with anything else at all. Any attempt at balance aimed at not increasing the number of abortions in Victoria would surely include measures such as cooling-off periods, counselling and at least a prohibition on partial-birth abortion. Where are such balancing measures in the VLRC recommendations? They do not exist in those recommendations or in the bill that is before us.
The VLRC was asked to recommend laws consistent with public opinion. Public opinion overwhelmingly wants fewer abortions. What provision in this bill will mean fewer abortions?
Mr Drum -- None.
Mr KAVANAGH -- No provision whatsoever. This bill will encourage more abortions.
Interjections from gallery.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mrs Peulich) -- Order! There will be no interjections from the gallery. It is disorderly.
Mr KAVANAGH -- This really is extremist legislation. By any standard, by any measure, this is extremist legislation. I understand these provisions abolishing the right to conscientious objection appear almost nowhere else in what we might call the Western world. There were claims that such provisions abolishing the right to conscientious objection exist in Britain; however, research has indicated that that is not the case. In Britain there is actually a legislative right to conscientious objection.
We have legislation explicitly taking away the right to conscientious objection in Victoria, and of course it is the bill before us.
The law does more than simply put people in jail or fine them. The law expresses principles, and those principles are important. One of the reasons they are important is that they have a deterrent effect, independent of legal punishments. Removing those legal principles, even if not supported by criminal consequences, will lead to more abortions than would otherwise happen.
It would be difficult to construct a plausible argument that support for this bill will not entail personal responsibility for the extra abortions that would result from its passage. Some members have suggested that legalisation allows regulation. There is nothing in the retention of the in-principle restrictions on abortion which exist under our present law that prevents effective regulation. This bill would legalise abortion for any reason or for no reason. It does not even seek to regulate abortion, only to facilitate abortion.
What effective regulation of abortion would follow if this bill is passed? Members know that the honest answer is none. Furthermore, retaining the in-principle support for the unborn under our existing law would not preclude effective regulation in any way, if that were desired by the Parliament. On the other hand, abandoning even in-principle protection for the unborn would make effective regulation even less likely. Other examples, such as the growth of the commercial sex industry, which has boomed in size since legalisation of prostitution in Victoria, also demonstrate that the claim that legalisation means effective regulation is false. Ms Pulford said that the bill would not increase the number of unplanned pregnancies. I agree with that; it will not increase the number of pregnancies, it will only increase the number of pregnancies that end in abortion.
They are two quite different things
.
The bill offers no protection to the woman or to the unborn person. There is no cooling-off period, no counselling, no warnings of the great harm that is done not only to the baby but to the woman as well. There is no provision for pain relief and no restriction on sex selection abortion.
Over approximately the last 40 years, since the late 1960s when prosecutions for abortions virtually ceased, there have been close to 4 million abortions carried out in Australia, most with the financial support of the taxpayer, willing or unwilling. As a teacher I often looked at empty chairs in classrooms, and I looked out
Page 4119
over quiet corners of schoolyards, and I wondered how different Australia would be if not for this epidemic of abortion over the last 40 years.
The oldest of those who were aborted at the beginning of this process, about 40 years ago, would now be becoming grandparents for the first time. Their grandchildren, of course, do not exist and never will, nor will their children or any other descendants. In the film Gladiator the main character, Maximus, says, 'What we do in life echoes in eternity'. What echo will each one of us leave? Will it be life reverberating through the ages or will we vote for painful death wantonly inflicted on the youngest and the most vulnerable, bequeathing an echo of death, a legacy of silence resounding long after every one of us is dead? It is ironic that this bill proposes to remove from the Crimes Act and put into the Health Act the facilitation of abortion.
It is ironic because abortion is not consistent with health; abortion is destructive of health. Removing abortion from the Crimes Act is something that many members have already spoken about in an emotional way; they have said it is terrible that women have been subject to the Crimes Act. First of all there is no realistic risk of prosecution, and there has not been for four decades.
The passage of this bill, however, will make criminals of doctors who know as a matter of medical fact that the unborn are human beings. It would also make it a criminal offence for a doctor in some circumstances to refuse to refer his patient whom he believes will be harmed by a referral to an abortionist. Technically it will be an offence under this act not to send a woman to an abortionist even when the doctor knows that in his professional medical opinion it will harm the woman. That is, it makes it an offence for a doctor to exercise his medical judgement in the interest of his patient.
What advantages could this bill have? It seeks to advance medicine, but in my view medicine is about saving people's lives, extending their lives, improving their health. Simply because something is done in a clinical environment does not make it medical any more than is the execution of prisoners in the United States, which involves medical personnel and doctors checking that the executed person is dead. That is not a medical procedure, nor is taking the life of an unborn child. It does not make it medical to stab someone just because you use a scalpel rather than a switchblade.
What advantage would passage of this bill bring? No doubt some members will continue to talk, as some already have, about backyard abortion and its consequences, but that is certainly not what this debate is about. The alternative to the passage of this bill is not a return to backyard abortions and a regime of criminal prosecutions.
The alternative to passage of this bill is the retention of in-principle legal protection for all people, including the unborn. It is a principle, as I said, which was hard won but could be easily destroyed. It is a principle that protects us all and which we abolish or diminish at the peril of every single Victorian.
The bill's proponents will see vindication if this bill becomes law. There may even be champagne and strawberries on the steps of this Parliament to celebrate that apparent vindication. Such a celebration, however, would be based on false assumptions. The passage of this bill will not mean that abortion is right, justified or properly legal. If this bill is passed, it will simply mean that a majority of members of this Parliament are profoundly misguided about abortion. The passage of this bill will not end the debate in Victoria about abortion any more than the case of Roe v. Wade ended the debate in the United States, which is much hotter than the debate in Australia.
There will be no final solution to the question of abortion even if this bill is passed. The government has proclaimed that this is a conscience vote for all ALP members. If that is true, then its members will vote according to the merits or otherwise of this bill. Members of Parliament from all sides share at least one characteristic -- ambition. Ambition is not a bad thing at all when it spurs us on to do our best. Supporting the removal of in-principle legal protection for any category of person, however, cannot be best -- not for the particular victims, the baby and the mother, not the best for our society generally and not for any member supporting such a measure.
Some members have already declared they will support this bill. I ask such members to change their minds.
I know it is a difficult thing to do once you have stated in public that you will vote one way, but I ask them to consider the evidence again, to maybe look at it with fresh eyes and not be prejudiced by the fact that they have heard certain slogans over and over again.
There is a story that is apparently true about the sinking of the Titanic. Apparently as it sank some of the people jumping onto lifeboats looked up and saw some people standing up on the deck, not wanting to move. The people in the lifeboats said, 'Come on, jump into the lifeboats -- the ship is sinking'. Some of the people on the deck said, 'No, this ship can't sink. We're all right'. The people in the boat said, 'The water is up to the bulkheads. There's 3 feet of water in the ballroom. Come on -- the ship's going down'. Apparently one of
Page 4120
the people on the deck pulled out the brochure about the Titanic and said, 'This ship can't sink. See? It says --unsinkable!--'.
When people are told something over and over again, sometimes it is very difficult to change their minds, no matter what the evidence. I ask those members who said they will vote for this bill to reconsider and to look at the evidence -- not to be like the people on the deck of the Titanic, believing something because they have heard it so many times that it must be true. I ask them to show courage, change their minds and vote against the bill.
I am certain this bill is a grave mistake; I know it. It represents a danger to all Victorians, particularly, but not only, the unborn. I ask all members to vote for the interests of women and especially for the lives of the most vulnerable and most defenceless -- those who most need their protection. The victims of this bill will be real. Their pain will be real. These real victims are real people. I implore every member to vote against this bill.
Interjections from gallery.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Elasmar) -- Order! Clear the gallery, please!
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT -- Order! This is a debate in which everybody holds a very strong position. Mr Kavanagh has made a significant contribution to the debate, and that is acknowledged by all sides of the house. His was certainly a heartfelt contribution. The reality is that that display by the gallery was improper in terms of the procedures of the house. Whilst we understand the support that a number of people have for Mr Kavanagh's position, we must maintain the decorum of the house down here.
Members of the public have been warned throughout the day that it is not acceptable for people in the gallery to engage in the debate, and that includes by way of applause or other participation in terms of members' contributions. My predecessor in the Chair rightly suggested that the gallery ought to be cleared on that basis. Mr Elasmar and I both take the view that we do not want to take that action. I suggest that people restrain themselves, listen to the debate and accept the fact that the contributions on the floor need to proceed without participation from members of the gallery.
…
Date: 10 October 2008
…
Page 4206
…
House divided on motion:
Ayes, 23
Barber, Mr
Lovell, Ms
Broad, Ms (Teller)
Madden, Mr
Coote, Mrs
Mikakos, Ms
Darveniza, Ms
Pakula, Mr
Davis, Mr D.
Pennicuik, Ms
Davis, Mr P.
Pulford, Ms
Eideh, Mr
Scheffer, Mr
Hall, Mr
Tee, Mr
Hartland, Ms
Thornley, Mr
Jennings, Mr
Tierney, Ms (Teller)
Koch, Mr
Viney, Mr
Leane, Mr
Page 4207
Noes, 17
Atkinson, Mr
O'Donohue, Mr
Dalla-Riva, Mr
Petrovich, Mrs
Drum, Mr
Peulich, Mrs
Elasmar, Mr
Rich-Phillips, Mr
Finn, Mr (Teller)
Smith, Mr
Guy, Mr
Somyurek, Mr
Kavanagh, Mr (Teller)
Theophanous, Mr
Kronberg, Mrs
Vogels, Mr
Lenders, Mr
Motion agreed to.
Read second time.
Committed.
Interjections from gallery.
Persons escorted from gallery.
Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region took a leading role in the Legislative Council in opposing the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 to decriminalise abortion and he received a thunderous standing ovation from the public gallery unprecedented in the recent history of the Victorian Parliament at the conclusion of his exceptional speech opposing abortion which took approximately three hours. The President of the House complimented Mr. Kavanagh on the amount of effort he put into the speech.
The Abortion Bill 2008 allows abortions up to 24 weeks for any reason and for no reason. Beyond 24 weeks, two abortionists merely need to say that an abortion is “appropriate”.
This legislation further requires doctors who have a conscientious objection to abortion to nevertheless refer pregnant women to other doctors who are “known not to have a conscientious objection” and even to perform abortions in some circumstances.
A majority of MPs, including Members from every political party (except the DLP) supported this legislation. A majority of Upper House MPs also voted against amendments which Mr Kavanagh proposed in Parliament, to:
1. Ban partial birth abortion - the killing of babies as they are being born (illegal throughout the USA),
2. Require pain relief for babies being aborted (there is overwhelming evidence that abortion is excruciatingly painful), and
3. Require abortionists to care for babies born alive after “failed” abortions.
Mr Kavanagh supported other amendments proposed by other Members such as allowing conscientious objection for medical practitioners though none of these amendments gained majority support.
Mr Kavanagh is disturbed that Victorian MPs supported the killing of the unborn and the partially born, opposed assistance to those born alive after unsuccessful abortions and even voted against pain relief.
Below is the last part of Mr Kavanagh’s speech in Parliament on Hansard during the second reading. The bill was later passed unamended at the third reading after all amendments failed during the committee phase of the debate.
The full text of Mr Kavanagh’s speech in Parliament on Hansard during the second reading and committee phases of the debate before its passage at the third reading can be found by entering the relevant search criteria at: http://tex.parliament.vic.gov.au/bin/texhtmlt?form=VicHansard.adv.
HANSARD:
Title: ABORTION LAW REFORM BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 9 October 2008 P
age: 4093
...
SECOND READING
Debate resumed.
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria)
…
Page 4116
...
…We might consider the point of conscientious objection or the removal of conscientious objection rights with an analogy. Imagine, for example, that we lived in one of the states of the United States in which there is legal execution of prisoners. We might consider what our reaction would be in the event of a person being asked by a state official, a doctor, to participate in the execution of a convicted felon. I think we would all be horrified. The situation is indeed analogous, except for one thing: it is much worse in Victoria, because we know the victim will be entirely innocent. There is nobody more innocent than an unborn person. In the
Page 4117
state in America where that might happen the victim would have to be convicted first of a very serious offence of taking other people's lives. This situation in Victoria is much worse than the one I suggest might be analogous in the United States, and it applies not only to physicians and medical practitioners but also to nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals.
This bill would allow even partial-birth abortions, a gruesome form of homicide that is illegal throughout the United States. The constitutionality of this law in America has recently been upheld in the United States Supreme Court, in spite of a general prohibition on laws against abortion, as determined in the infamous case of Roe v. Wade.
Partial-birth abortions are committed late in a pregnancy. They involve almost removing the baby from the mother with forceps, feet first.
It is done this way, feet first, because if the baby were to be born in the normal way, head first, she would be born too quickly to kill her before she was fully born. While her head is still in the birth canal an instrument is inserted into her brain through her upper neck and her brains are vacuumed out through the incision. The baby is then fully removed from the mother's body, dead. Such a procedure, it has been declared by the United States Congress, is never medically necessary, but it is already being carried out in Victoria. Passage of this bill would increase the frequency of this practice and lend to it the authority of the state of Victoria.
This bill offers no protection to the woman or the unborn. There is no cooling-off period, no counselling, no warnings of the harm that is done, not only to the unborn, but often to the women as well and also to the babies they have later, after the abortion. There is no provision for pain relief for the unborn, though there is evidence that many of the unborn feel the pain of an abortion to an extent that we cannot understand because they develop the ability to feel pain before birth but do not develop the capacity to express pain until after birth.
There is no restriction in this bill on sex selection abortions, which the United Nations says, together with infanticide, have recently killed 60 million unborn girls because they were female. Most of them have been in East Asia and far eastern parts of Europe. However, it is also already happening in parts of the United States, and we can be confident that it is also happening in Australia, including in Victoria.
I would like to propose some alternatives to the present bill. In present circumstances a program of effectively implemented criminal sanctions against abortion would indeed face formidable obstacles.
These include parts of the profits of the lucrative abortion industry which are being directed into political donations for the purpose of freeing its practitioners of restraints. Such obstacles would also include, above all, the profoundly misguided but vehement denials of the humanity of the unborn, contrary to all scientific evidence, and a belief by many that a right to life of the unborn is a matter of choice by others, even though the exercise of such a choice takes away every choice from somebody else.
Nevertheless, there are actions which the government can and should take to address this problem. The first is to retain in-principle legal protection for all people, including the unborn. Although by no means sufficient, it is necessary. Instituting a program of counselling and intervention by state agencies and support for non-government organisations would help women who need it to allow their children to stay alive. It would also be a very appropriate response to the problem.
We should consider clearly informing all women considering abortion of the option of open adoption, which exists in Victoria. This would allow them to give birth to their baby and allow other people to care for their baby most of the time, but also enable them to retain a relationship with that baby for the rest of their life. This is an attractive option that women who are considering an abortion should be told about.
Furthermore, we should consider a public education program which demonstrates the humanity of the unborn and which adequately warns of the dangers of abortion to women. A public education campaign that makes it clear that the unborn are human beings is also a necessary response to the present situation.
If you go into a government office in Victoria you will see posters about such campaigns for lots of people, such as the campaign asking us to see the person, not the disability. Why not have such a campaign for the unborn also?
It would not require criminal prosecutions or putting people in jail, but it would be likely to have an effect. If such programs have no effect, why do we have the programs that exist already for other people?
Young women who have nowhere to go should be offered accommodation and help. We have programs already for women who are victims of domestic violence. Why not provide a similar sort of help for women who are in search of the help needed for them to keep their baby instead of aborting their baby? We should also ban partial-birth abortion. In respect of this particular bill proponents might well claim that the situation is now so bad from the unborn's
Page 4118
point of view. They might ask: what is the point of opposing the legalisation of abortion? It is a reasonable question to which there are several answers. Firstly, passage of this bill will cause even more unborn people to be aborted. I hope Mr Hall, in particular, pays attention to these points, because he claimed that he was voting for the bill on the basis that it will not cause more abortions.
Existing laws, though frequently flouted, provide a last line of defence for those women attempting to resist pressure from their mothers, husbands, boyfriends or others to have an abortion. Our current laws allow such women the powerful defence of correctly asserting that abortion is illegal.
The VLRC was charged with recommending decriminalisation in a way that would not increase the number of abortions in Victoria.
Its greatest failure is in recommending three options, all of which would remove the prohibition on abortion inherent in our current in-principle legal support for the unborn while doing nothing whatever to replace that deterrent effect of the authority of the letter of the law with anything else at all. Any attempt at balance aimed at not increasing the number of abortions in Victoria would surely include measures such as cooling-off periods, counselling and at least a prohibition on partial-birth abortion. Where are such balancing measures in the VLRC recommendations? They do not exist in those recommendations or in the bill that is before us.
The VLRC was asked to recommend laws consistent with public opinion. Public opinion overwhelmingly wants fewer abortions. What provision in this bill will mean fewer abortions?
Mr Drum -- None.
Mr KAVANAGH -- No provision whatsoever. This bill will encourage more abortions.
Interjections from gallery.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mrs Peulich) -- Order! There will be no interjections from the gallery. It is disorderly.
Mr KAVANAGH -- This really is extremist legislation. By any standard, by any measure, this is extremist legislation. I understand these provisions abolishing the right to conscientious objection appear almost nowhere else in what we might call the Western world. There were claims that such provisions abolishing the right to conscientious objection exist in Britain; however, research has indicated that that is not the case. In Britain there is actually a legislative right to conscientious objection.
We have legislation explicitly taking away the right to conscientious objection in Victoria, and of course it is the bill before us.
The law does more than simply put people in jail or fine them. The law expresses principles, and those principles are important. One of the reasons they are important is that they have a deterrent effect, independent of legal punishments. Removing those legal principles, even if not supported by criminal consequences, will lead to more abortions than would otherwise happen.
It would be difficult to construct a plausible argument that support for this bill will not entail personal responsibility for the extra abortions that would result from its passage. Some members have suggested that legalisation allows regulation. There is nothing in the retention of the in-principle restrictions on abortion which exist under our present law that prevents effective regulation. This bill would legalise abortion for any reason or for no reason. It does not even seek to regulate abortion, only to facilitate abortion.
What effective regulation of abortion would follow if this bill is passed? Members know that the honest answer is none. Furthermore, retaining the in-principle support for the unborn under our existing law would not preclude effective regulation in any way, if that were desired by the Parliament. On the other hand, abandoning even in-principle protection for the unborn would make effective regulation even less likely. Other examples, such as the growth of the commercial sex industry, which has boomed in size since legalisation of prostitution in Victoria, also demonstrate that the claim that legalisation means effective regulation is false. Ms Pulford said that the bill would not increase the number of unplanned pregnancies. I agree with that; it will not increase the number of pregnancies, it will only increase the number of pregnancies that end in abortion.
They are two quite different things
.
The bill offers no protection to the woman or to the unborn person. There is no cooling-off period, no counselling, no warnings of the great harm that is done not only to the baby but to the woman as well. There is no provision for pain relief and no restriction on sex selection abortion.
Over approximately the last 40 years, since the late 1960s when prosecutions for abortions virtually ceased, there have been close to 4 million abortions carried out in Australia, most with the financial support of the taxpayer, willing or unwilling. As a teacher I often looked at empty chairs in classrooms, and I looked out
Page 4119
over quiet corners of schoolyards, and I wondered how different Australia would be if not for this epidemic of abortion over the last 40 years.
The oldest of those who were aborted at the beginning of this process, about 40 years ago, would now be becoming grandparents for the first time. Their grandchildren, of course, do not exist and never will, nor will their children or any other descendants. In the film Gladiator the main character, Maximus, says, 'What we do in life echoes in eternity'. What echo will each one of us leave? Will it be life reverberating through the ages or will we vote for painful death wantonly inflicted on the youngest and the most vulnerable, bequeathing an echo of death, a legacy of silence resounding long after every one of us is dead? It is ironic that this bill proposes to remove from the Crimes Act and put into the Health Act the facilitation of abortion.
It is ironic because abortion is not consistent with health; abortion is destructive of health. Removing abortion from the Crimes Act is something that many members have already spoken about in an emotional way; they have said it is terrible that women have been subject to the Crimes Act. First of all there is no realistic risk of prosecution, and there has not been for four decades.
The passage of this bill, however, will make criminals of doctors who know as a matter of medical fact that the unborn are human beings. It would also make it a criminal offence for a doctor in some circumstances to refuse to refer his patient whom he believes will be harmed by a referral to an abortionist. Technically it will be an offence under this act not to send a woman to an abortionist even when the doctor knows that in his professional medical opinion it will harm the woman. That is, it makes it an offence for a doctor to exercise his medical judgement in the interest of his patient.
What advantages could this bill have? It seeks to advance medicine, but in my view medicine is about saving people's lives, extending their lives, improving their health. Simply because something is done in a clinical environment does not make it medical any more than is the execution of prisoners in the United States, which involves medical personnel and doctors checking that the executed person is dead. That is not a medical procedure, nor is taking the life of an unborn child. It does not make it medical to stab someone just because you use a scalpel rather than a switchblade.
What advantage would passage of this bill bring? No doubt some members will continue to talk, as some already have, about backyard abortion and its consequences, but that is certainly not what this debate is about. The alternative to the passage of this bill is not a return to backyard abortions and a regime of criminal prosecutions.
The alternative to passage of this bill is the retention of in-principle legal protection for all people, including the unborn. It is a principle, as I said, which was hard won but could be easily destroyed. It is a principle that protects us all and which we abolish or diminish at the peril of every single Victorian.
The bill's proponents will see vindication if this bill becomes law. There may even be champagne and strawberries on the steps of this Parliament to celebrate that apparent vindication. Such a celebration, however, would be based on false assumptions. The passage of this bill will not mean that abortion is right, justified or properly legal. If this bill is passed, it will simply mean that a majority of members of this Parliament are profoundly misguided about abortion. The passage of this bill will not end the debate in Victoria about abortion any more than the case of Roe v. Wade ended the debate in the United States, which is much hotter than the debate in Australia.
There will be no final solution to the question of abortion even if this bill is passed. The government has proclaimed that this is a conscience vote for all ALP members. If that is true, then its members will vote according to the merits or otherwise of this bill. Members of Parliament from all sides share at least one characteristic -- ambition. Ambition is not a bad thing at all when it spurs us on to do our best. Supporting the removal of in-principle legal protection for any category of person, however, cannot be best -- not for the particular victims, the baby and the mother, not the best for our society generally and not for any member supporting such a measure.
Some members have already declared they will support this bill. I ask such members to change their minds.
I know it is a difficult thing to do once you have stated in public that you will vote one way, but I ask them to consider the evidence again, to maybe look at it with fresh eyes and not be prejudiced by the fact that they have heard certain slogans over and over again.
There is a story that is apparently true about the sinking of the Titanic. Apparently as it sank some of the people jumping onto lifeboats looked up and saw some people standing up on the deck, not wanting to move. The people in the lifeboats said, 'Come on, jump into the lifeboats -- the ship is sinking'. Some of the people on the deck said, 'No, this ship can't sink. We're all right'. The people in the boat said, 'The water is up to the bulkheads. There's 3 feet of water in the ballroom. Come on -- the ship's going down'. Apparently one of
Page 4120
the people on the deck pulled out the brochure about the Titanic and said, 'This ship can't sink. See? It says --unsinkable!--'.
When people are told something over and over again, sometimes it is very difficult to change their minds, no matter what the evidence. I ask those members who said they will vote for this bill to reconsider and to look at the evidence -- not to be like the people on the deck of the Titanic, believing something because they have heard it so many times that it must be true. I ask them to show courage, change their minds and vote against the bill.
I am certain this bill is a grave mistake; I know it. It represents a danger to all Victorians, particularly, but not only, the unborn. I ask all members to vote for the interests of women and especially for the lives of the most vulnerable and most defenceless -- those who most need their protection. The victims of this bill will be real. Their pain will be real. These real victims are real people. I implore every member to vote against this bill.
Interjections from gallery.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Elasmar) -- Order! Clear the gallery, please!
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT -- Order! This is a debate in which everybody holds a very strong position. Mr Kavanagh has made a significant contribution to the debate, and that is acknowledged by all sides of the house. His was certainly a heartfelt contribution. The reality is that that display by the gallery was improper in terms of the procedures of the house. Whilst we understand the support that a number of people have for Mr Kavanagh's position, we must maintain the decorum of the house down here.
Members of the public have been warned throughout the day that it is not acceptable for people in the gallery to engage in the debate, and that includes by way of applause or other participation in terms of members' contributions. My predecessor in the Chair rightly suggested that the gallery ought to be cleared on that basis. Mr Elasmar and I both take the view that we do not want to take that action. I suggest that people restrain themselves, listen to the debate and accept the fact that the contributions on the floor need to proceed without participation from members of the gallery.
…
Date: 10 October 2008
…
Page 4206
…
House divided on motion:
Ayes, 23
Barber, Mr
Lovell, Ms
Broad, Ms (Teller)
Madden, Mr
Coote, Mrs
Mikakos, Ms
Darveniza, Ms
Pakula, Mr
Davis, Mr D.
Pennicuik, Ms
Davis, Mr P.
Pulford, Ms
Eideh, Mr
Scheffer, Mr
Hall, Mr
Tee, Mr
Hartland, Ms
Thornley, Mr
Jennings, Mr
Tierney, Ms (Teller)
Koch, Mr
Viney, Mr
Leane, Mr
Page 4207
Noes, 17
Atkinson, Mr
O'Donohue, Mr
Dalla-Riva, Mr
Petrovich, Mrs
Drum, Mr
Peulich, Mrs
Elasmar, Mr
Rich-Phillips, Mr
Finn, Mr (Teller)
Smith, Mr
Guy, Mr
Somyurek, Mr
Kavanagh, Mr (Teller)
Theophanous, Mr
Kronberg, Mrs
Vogels, Mr
Lenders, Mr
Motion agreed to.
Read second time.
Committed.
Interjections from gallery.
Persons escorted from gallery.
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Hansard 2008-12-04 John Valves Pty Ltd in Ballarat
BACKGROUND:
John Valves Pty Ltd, a manufacturing company operating in Ballarat since 1896 and employing 120 to 130 workers, had been placed into administration.
Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region asked the minister to assist the affected workers in receiving due payment and take action to prevent a repeat occurance.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: John Valves Pty Ltd: government assistance
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Adjournment
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 4 December 2008
Page: 5501
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- My adjournment matter is for the Acting Minister for Industry and Trade and relates to the closure of John Valves in Ballarat. Former workers at John Valves have told me that although payments for salary sacrifice, superannuation and even for maintenance were deducted from their wages, at least some of those payments were never forwarded to the appropriate funds. I ask the minister to investigate and, if these claims are correct, take action to see that these workers are expeditiously compensated from the proceeds of the liquidation without having to take legal action. I also ask that he take action to prevent such a situation happening again.
John Valves Pty Ltd, a manufacturing company operating in Ballarat since 1896 and employing 120 to 130 workers, had been placed into administration.
Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region asked the minister to assist the affected workers in receiving due payment and take action to prevent a repeat occurance.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: John Valves Pty Ltd: government assistance
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Adjournment
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 4 December 2008
Page: 5501
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- My adjournment matter is for the Acting Minister for Industry and Trade and relates to the closure of John Valves in Ballarat. Former workers at John Valves have told me that although payments for salary sacrifice, superannuation and even for maintenance were deducted from their wages, at least some of those payments were never forwarded to the appropriate funds. I ask the minister to investigate and, if these claims are correct, take action to see that these workers are expeditiously compensated from the proceeds of the liquidation without having to take legal action. I also ask that he take action to prevent such a situation happening again.
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Hansard 2008-11-11 Water Commonwealth Powers Bill
BACKGROUND:
The government introduced the Water (Commonwealth Powers) Bill to hand over control of the Victorian part of the Murray-Darling River system to the Federal Commonwealth Government.
Mr Kavanagh’s comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: WATER (COMMONWEALTH POWERS) BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 11 November 2008
Page: 4865
WATER (COMMONWEALTH POWERS) BILL
Second reading
...
Page 4878
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I have only a few words to say about this bill.
Of course the Murray-Darling system represents the most precious asset we have in this country; indeed it is the most valuable resource we have on our continent. It is an asset and a resource that, of course, crosses state boundaries, and that is a situation fraught with some difficulties. We all know that with any water resource like this those downstream can easily be held hostage by those upstream and by whatever actions they take in removing water. The fact of the matter is that basically Victoria is downstream in the system, so it seems to me that Victoria has quite a lot to win from a situation where power over the river is transferred to an independent superstate authority -- in this case, of course, it is the commonwealth of Australia. It seems quite appropriate that a national government should have control over a national resource, particularly one that crosses borders between different states.
The government introduced the Water (Commonwealth Powers) Bill to hand over control of the Victorian part of the Murray-Darling River system to the Federal Commonwealth Government.
Mr Kavanagh’s comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: WATER (COMMONWEALTH POWERS) BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 11 November 2008
Page: 4865
WATER (COMMONWEALTH POWERS) BILL
Second reading
...
Page 4878
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I have only a few words to say about this bill.
Of course the Murray-Darling system represents the most precious asset we have in this country; indeed it is the most valuable resource we have on our continent. It is an asset and a resource that, of course, crosses state boundaries, and that is a situation fraught with some difficulties. We all know that with any water resource like this those downstream can easily be held hostage by those upstream and by whatever actions they take in removing water. The fact of the matter is that basically Victoria is downstream in the system, so it seems to me that Victoria has quite a lot to win from a situation where power over the river is transferred to an independent superstate authority -- in this case, of course, it is the commonwealth of Australia. It seems quite appropriate that a national government should have control over a national resource, particularly one that crosses borders between different states.
Hansard 2008-11-13 Manufacturing: regional Victoria
BACKGROUND:
On 13 November 2008, Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria asked in Parliament Mr Lenders the Acting Minister for Industry and Trade about government action that had been taken in recent weeks to ensure the survival of manufacturing in regional Victoria
Mr Kavanagh’s comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: Manufacturing: regional and rural Victoria
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Questions without Notice
Members: KAVANAGH; LENDERS
Date: 13 November 2008
Page: 5014
Manufacturing: regional and rural Victoria
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- My question without notice is for the Treasurer in his capacity as Acting Minister for Industry and Trade, and it relates to manufacturing policy. Recent closures, including partial closures, in Ballarat and Geelong indicate that, partially due to the current global economic climate, regional manufacturers in Victoria are under unprecedented stress. I ask: while we await the government's manufacturing strategy, what actions, such as innovations or changes to policy, has the government taken in recent weeks to ensure the survival of manufacturing in regional Victoria?
Mr LENDERS (Acting Minister for Industry and Trade) -- I thank Mr Kavanagh for his question and his interest in regional manufacturing. Mr Kavanagh's question was: while awaiting a manufacturing statement, what is the government doing in the short term, in the interim, in regional areas?
The actions we have been taking in manufacturing for a period of time -- what we have done and what will be put into place -- have been specifically directed towards regional Victoria. I will be very brief on this.
Victoria was the first state to bring in a Regional Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), and it was brought in by this Labor government. It was opposed in this house by the Liberals and The Nationals in the first instance, and it was only passed when it was introduced a second time. The significance of the fund is that in Mr Kavanagh's electorate and in all other regional electorates there is now the capacity for the state government to work with local government and with industry to build on infrastructure to assist in manufacturing. I could give numerous examples across the state of where that sort of infrastructure has been the key for new manufacturing to be able to come into an area.
Secondly, the Victorian industry participation policy that we were discussing before in this house was brought in by this government to assist manufacturing. There are ongoing examples of this: reductions in payroll tax which came into effect on 1 July, helping manufacturing; reductions in land tax which came in on 1 July, helping manufacturing; and the cut to WorkCover premiums which came in on 1 July, helping manufacturers. In addition to that -- and this is obviously nothing to do with the government -- for those manufacturers relying on exports the Australian dollar has gone from around US98 cents, I think the
Page 5015
figure was, in late May down to the high 60s now. That is obviously assisting regional manufacturers.
More immediate than that is the investment the government has made in infrastructure in some industries in regional Victoria. This is not in Mr Kavanagh's electorate, but as an example, investment in infrastructure has meant that concrete castings for some road projects are being built in the Latrobe Valley. It is a $4 billion infrastructure project, and much of that money goes into manufactured products. That is happening now.
Mr Koch interjected.
Mr LENDERS -- Mr Koch interjects about John Valves in Ballarat. Yesterday the head of Regional Development Victoria was there. We are in ongoing dialogue in the area to find a buyer for that company and work it through.
These are not easy times, and Mr Kavanagh is certainly not implying they are. What he is saying is: what are we doing in the interim? In the interim we are working with companies and we are working with their workforces. Those policies relating to RIDF, WorkCover, policies land tax, stamp duties and payroll tax are all assisting manufacturing. Many of these things are only kicking in now; these policy initiatives are just coming into place. There is a lot more to be done. The manufacturing statement will articulate a lot of the things we are doing and the things we will do. Mr Kavanagh and I both share a great regard for manufacturing, particularly in regional Victoria. This state has a great future, and this government will work with manufacturing to deliver on that.
Supplementary question
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- Of the changes the minister just outlined, I ask: which of them represent responses to the new international environment in finance and the economy that has developed in the last couple of months?
Mr LENDERS (Acting Minister for Industry and Trade) -- All of them. There is not a single item that alone assists an individual manufacturer -- it is a collection. All the things I mentioned in relation to the budget -- land tax, stamp duty, payroll tax and WorkCover premiums -- assist in reducing the burden on manufacturers. The single largest issue for a manufacturer who relies on exports is the fluctuating dollar, and the government can claim no credit for that -- that is obviously an international factor.
The other thing I did not mention which is making a significant difference to manufacturers now is the intervention of the national government along with most other G20 governments in stabilising the banking system.
Banks are now lending to banks again, and banks are lending to customers again. We are seeing the effects of that guarantee flowing through. Similarly share markets are partly stabilising. The share market has gone down a long, long way, but we are seeing governments attempting to address that volatility at a national and international level with the freeze on short selling and a range of other things.
Together, all these are necessary for business confidence and consumer confidence, which will assist manufacturing. There is no single answer, as Mr Kavanagh well knows, and he is not implying there is. All of these measures come together to assist manufacturing. I think anybody who believes a single manufacturing statement or a single action by a government will make a difference is ignoring the fact that there are multiple factors coming together.
We have strategies and they are all coming together, but we are working with individual manufacturers in what are, particularly for those who do not export, trying times in the current environment.
On 13 November 2008, Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria asked in Parliament Mr Lenders the Acting Minister for Industry and Trade about government action that had been taken in recent weeks to ensure the survival of manufacturing in regional Victoria
Mr Kavanagh’s comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: Manufacturing: regional and rural Victoria
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Questions without Notice
Members: KAVANAGH; LENDERS
Date: 13 November 2008
Page: 5014
Manufacturing: regional and rural Victoria
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- My question without notice is for the Treasurer in his capacity as Acting Minister for Industry and Trade, and it relates to manufacturing policy. Recent closures, including partial closures, in Ballarat and Geelong indicate that, partially due to the current global economic climate, regional manufacturers in Victoria are under unprecedented stress. I ask: while we await the government's manufacturing strategy, what actions, such as innovations or changes to policy, has the government taken in recent weeks to ensure the survival of manufacturing in regional Victoria?
Mr LENDERS (Acting Minister for Industry and Trade) -- I thank Mr Kavanagh for his question and his interest in regional manufacturing. Mr Kavanagh's question was: while awaiting a manufacturing statement, what is the government doing in the short term, in the interim, in regional areas?
The actions we have been taking in manufacturing for a period of time -- what we have done and what will be put into place -- have been specifically directed towards regional Victoria. I will be very brief on this.
Victoria was the first state to bring in a Regional Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), and it was brought in by this Labor government. It was opposed in this house by the Liberals and The Nationals in the first instance, and it was only passed when it was introduced a second time. The significance of the fund is that in Mr Kavanagh's electorate and in all other regional electorates there is now the capacity for the state government to work with local government and with industry to build on infrastructure to assist in manufacturing. I could give numerous examples across the state of where that sort of infrastructure has been the key for new manufacturing to be able to come into an area.
Secondly, the Victorian industry participation policy that we were discussing before in this house was brought in by this government to assist manufacturing. There are ongoing examples of this: reductions in payroll tax which came into effect on 1 July, helping manufacturing; reductions in land tax which came in on 1 July, helping manufacturing; and the cut to WorkCover premiums which came in on 1 July, helping manufacturers. In addition to that -- and this is obviously nothing to do with the government -- for those manufacturers relying on exports the Australian dollar has gone from around US98 cents, I think the
Page 5015
figure was, in late May down to the high 60s now. That is obviously assisting regional manufacturers.
More immediate than that is the investment the government has made in infrastructure in some industries in regional Victoria. This is not in Mr Kavanagh's electorate, but as an example, investment in infrastructure has meant that concrete castings for some road projects are being built in the Latrobe Valley. It is a $4 billion infrastructure project, and much of that money goes into manufactured products. That is happening now.
Mr Koch interjected.
Mr LENDERS -- Mr Koch interjects about John Valves in Ballarat. Yesterday the head of Regional Development Victoria was there. We are in ongoing dialogue in the area to find a buyer for that company and work it through.
These are not easy times, and Mr Kavanagh is certainly not implying they are. What he is saying is: what are we doing in the interim? In the interim we are working with companies and we are working with their workforces. Those policies relating to RIDF, WorkCover, policies land tax, stamp duties and payroll tax are all assisting manufacturing. Many of these things are only kicking in now; these policy initiatives are just coming into place. There is a lot more to be done. The manufacturing statement will articulate a lot of the things we are doing and the things we will do. Mr Kavanagh and I both share a great regard for manufacturing, particularly in regional Victoria. This state has a great future, and this government will work with manufacturing to deliver on that.
Supplementary question
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- Of the changes the minister just outlined, I ask: which of them represent responses to the new international environment in finance and the economy that has developed in the last couple of months?
Mr LENDERS (Acting Minister for Industry and Trade) -- All of them. There is not a single item that alone assists an individual manufacturer -- it is a collection. All the things I mentioned in relation to the budget -- land tax, stamp duty, payroll tax and WorkCover premiums -- assist in reducing the burden on manufacturers. The single largest issue for a manufacturer who relies on exports is the fluctuating dollar, and the government can claim no credit for that -- that is obviously an international factor.
The other thing I did not mention which is making a significant difference to manufacturers now is the intervention of the national government along with most other G20 governments in stabilising the banking system.
Banks are now lending to banks again, and banks are lending to customers again. We are seeing the effects of that guarantee flowing through. Similarly share markets are partly stabilising. The share market has gone down a long, long way, but we are seeing governments attempting to address that volatility at a national and international level with the freeze on short selling and a range of other things.
Together, all these are necessary for business confidence and consumer confidence, which will assist manufacturing. There is no single answer, as Mr Kavanagh well knows, and he is not implying there is. All of these measures come together to assist manufacturing. I think anybody who believes a single manufacturing statement or a single action by a government will make a difference is ignoring the fact that there are multiple factors coming together.
We have strategies and they are all coming together, but we are working with individual manufacturers in what are, particularly for those who do not export, trying times in the current environment.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Hansard 2008-10-16 John Valves Pty Ltd in Ballarat
BACKGROUND:
John Valves Pty Ltd, a manufacturing company operating in Ballarat since 1896 and employing 120 to 130 workers, had been placed into administration.
Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region called on the government to assist the affected workers and industries in Victoria.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: John Valves Pty Ltd: government assistance
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Members Statements
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 16 October 2008
Page: 4461
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I referred yesterday to John Valves Pty Ltd, which has been placed into administration. The company has been operating since 1896. I support many of the comments made by Mr Vogels this morning. Like Mr Vogels, I visited John Valves in the middle of this year and was told by company representatives that they felt it was not getting a fair deal from the Victorian government. Neither was it getting fair treatment from the commonwealth government, because protection at that level is very low -- much lower than that provided in other countries that give protection to their industries.
In addition, the company felt it was not given fair consideration by the Victorian government for many projects in Victoria. Mr Vogels referred to a long list of them. Although the company was supplying other states, it had not won a contract in Victoria.
On behalf of John Valves Pty Ltd I asked the minister at that time to give the company better consideration.
I call on the government, firstly, to do what it can for the 120 to 130 workers whose future is now in jeopardy; secondly, to do what it can to guarantee better consideration in the future so that a new buyer may be found for the company; and thirdly, to provide better treatment of all industries in Victoria, especially in rural and regional Victoria.
John Valves Pty Ltd, a manufacturing company operating in Ballarat since 1896 and employing 120 to 130 workers, had been placed into administration.
Mr Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region called on the government to assist the affected workers and industries in Victoria.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: John Valves Pty Ltd: government assistance
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Members Statements
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 16 October 2008
Page: 4461
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I referred yesterday to John Valves Pty Ltd, which has been placed into administration. The company has been operating since 1896. I support many of the comments made by Mr Vogels this morning. Like Mr Vogels, I visited John Valves in the middle of this year and was told by company representatives that they felt it was not getting a fair deal from the Victorian government. Neither was it getting fair treatment from the commonwealth government, because protection at that level is very low -- much lower than that provided in other countries that give protection to their industries.
In addition, the company felt it was not given fair consideration by the Victorian government for many projects in Victoria. Mr Vogels referred to a long list of them. Although the company was supplying other states, it had not won a contract in Victoria.
On behalf of John Valves Pty Ltd I asked the minister at that time to give the company better consideration.
I call on the government, firstly, to do what it can for the 120 to 130 workers whose future is now in jeopardy; secondly, to do what it can to guarantee better consideration in the future so that a new buyer may be found for the company; and thirdly, to provide better treatment of all industries in Victoria, especially in rural and regional Victoria.
Hansard 2008-10-29 Innovation: stem cell research
BACKGROUND:
Professor Martin, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne, had recently written a letter showing that cloning for research purposes has been absolutely superseded and has become completely redundant.
Mr Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region, asked Mr Jennings the Minister for Innovation about changes that have been made to government policy in response to this fundamental change in research technology.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: Innovation: stem cell research
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Questions without Notice
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 29 October 2008
Page: 4611
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- My question is for Mr Jennings, the Minister for Innovation. It relates to a topic that was raised yesterday in the house regarding cloning for stem cell research. I refer to a letter written by an emeritus professor of medicine, Professor Martin, at the University of Melbourne. It was a letter that I think was received by most members, and it shows that already, over the last 12 months, cloning for research purposes has been absolutely superseded and is now completely redundant. It concludes:
"As it stands now, there is no basis for any further efforts to achieve therapeutic cloning using the transfer of adult cell nuclei to human eggs. Indeed it would be irresponsible to attempt this."
I ask the minister: what changes have been made to government policy in response to this fundamental change in research technology?
Mr JENNINGS (Minister for Innovation) -- I am happy to answer the question from Mr Kavanagh. Every time I talk about stem cells I pre-empt the eventual arrival of his question and probably matters that he will raise in consideration of a matter that I will not pre-empt by talking about what is on the notice paper. I am well aware of Mr Kavanagh's enduring interest in this matter.
When I talk about the funding that has been provided by the state of Victoria and joined in a collaborative effort by the New South Wales government in recent times in supporting stem cell research, I take the opportunity to talk about the parallel stream of embryonic stem cell research with induced pluripotent stem cells, which is the alternative stream that Mr Kavanagh and other members of the community have a greater degree of confidence in because it is derived from other forms of tissue rather than through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). I have taken the opportunity to reflect on the intention of the government through its funding arrangements to test the validity and the application of these various forms of stem cell research.
I understand Mr Kavanagh is not alone in having ethical considerations about SCNT stem cell research; others in the community share his concern. However, what Mr Kavanagh purports to be the accepted scientific wisdom is an assertion which I refute.
That it is well established and recognised and that there is no longer a valid reason to pursue SCNT stem cell research are assertions I reject.
Part of the scientific research program that we have in Victoria, part of what is happening around the world and part of the collaboration between ourselves and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine is to test what is the appropriate application of that field of scientific endeavour and what benefits the community may derive from it.
I am happy for us to be tested in this field and I am happy for us to see the relative effectiveness of these two forms of the significant streams of stem cell research, but I do not accept that there has been unequivocal scientific evidence to fall on one side or the other.
I will assert in this place, in the public domain and in subsequent debates, in terms of providing support for research into the future, that there are still many reasons why we should continue with determination to explore the application and effectiveness of stem cell research.
Supplementary question
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- If the obsolescence of cloning as a research technique can be shown to the satisfaction of the minister, would that not warrant, indeed necessitate, a change in government policy?
Page 4612
The PRESIDENT -- Order! In my opinion Mr Kavanagh is asking for an opinion, which is contrary to the standing orders.
Mr Jennings interjected.
The PRESIDENT -- Order! I am sure the minister can answer, but the question is whether the Chair will allow it to be answered. I will allow Mr Kavanagh the opportunity to rephrase his supplementary question.
Mr KAVANAGH -- If it is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the minister that the cloning technology is now obsolete, does he intend to change government policy?
Mr JENNINGS (Minister for Innovation) -- I thank the President for the opportunity to allow Mr Kavanagh to ask his question because it still warrants some personal opinion of mine and in terms of my responsibilities, but I am happy to outline what the sequence of events would be. In terms of the evidence and in terms of the commitment to research, I do not desert for 1 second from what I have said in my substantive answer. There are still many reasons for us to pursue with vigour the potential for SCNT research.
If the hypothetical situation of Mr Kavanagh's assertion came to be the scientific opinion that I would accept, then subsequently I, as a part of the government, would have some opportunities and obligations to share that with my colleagues and, with the collaboration within the policy development process of the government, to determine what the appropriate policy framework may be, and then, if necessary, to lead to legislation.
But at this point in time the Victorian government absolutely reaffirms its commitment to the legislative framework that we have in place in Victoria, to support the scientific research that we have in place and to consider -- on the basis of the best evidence, the best science and the best ethical considerations -- our position going forward. At this point in time we have got a lot of work to do.
Professor Martin, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne, had recently written a letter showing that cloning for research purposes has been absolutely superseded and has become completely redundant.
Mr Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria Region, asked Mr Jennings the Minister for Innovation about changes that have been made to government policy in response to this fundamental change in research technology.
Mr Kavanagh's comments in Parliament on Hansard are below:
HANSARD:
Title: Innovation: stem cell research
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Questions without Notice
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 29 October 2008
Page: 4611
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- My question is for Mr Jennings, the Minister for Innovation. It relates to a topic that was raised yesterday in the house regarding cloning for stem cell research. I refer to a letter written by an emeritus professor of medicine, Professor Martin, at the University of Melbourne. It was a letter that I think was received by most members, and it shows that already, over the last 12 months, cloning for research purposes has been absolutely superseded and is now completely redundant. It concludes:
"As it stands now, there is no basis for any further efforts to achieve therapeutic cloning using the transfer of adult cell nuclei to human eggs. Indeed it would be irresponsible to attempt this."
I ask the minister: what changes have been made to government policy in response to this fundamental change in research technology?
Mr JENNINGS (Minister for Innovation) -- I am happy to answer the question from Mr Kavanagh. Every time I talk about stem cells I pre-empt the eventual arrival of his question and probably matters that he will raise in consideration of a matter that I will not pre-empt by talking about what is on the notice paper. I am well aware of Mr Kavanagh's enduring interest in this matter.
When I talk about the funding that has been provided by the state of Victoria and joined in a collaborative effort by the New South Wales government in recent times in supporting stem cell research, I take the opportunity to talk about the parallel stream of embryonic stem cell research with induced pluripotent stem cells, which is the alternative stream that Mr Kavanagh and other members of the community have a greater degree of confidence in because it is derived from other forms of tissue rather than through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). I have taken the opportunity to reflect on the intention of the government through its funding arrangements to test the validity and the application of these various forms of stem cell research.
I understand Mr Kavanagh is not alone in having ethical considerations about SCNT stem cell research; others in the community share his concern. However, what Mr Kavanagh purports to be the accepted scientific wisdom is an assertion which I refute.
That it is well established and recognised and that there is no longer a valid reason to pursue SCNT stem cell research are assertions I reject.
Part of the scientific research program that we have in Victoria, part of what is happening around the world and part of the collaboration between ourselves and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine is to test what is the appropriate application of that field of scientific endeavour and what benefits the community may derive from it.
I am happy for us to be tested in this field and I am happy for us to see the relative effectiveness of these two forms of the significant streams of stem cell research, but I do not accept that there has been unequivocal scientific evidence to fall on one side or the other.
I will assert in this place, in the public domain and in subsequent debates, in terms of providing support for research into the future, that there are still many reasons why we should continue with determination to explore the application and effectiveness of stem cell research.
Supplementary question
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- If the obsolescence of cloning as a research technique can be shown to the satisfaction of the minister, would that not warrant, indeed necessitate, a change in government policy?
Page 4612
The PRESIDENT -- Order! In my opinion Mr Kavanagh is asking for an opinion, which is contrary to the standing orders.
Mr Jennings interjected.
The PRESIDENT -- Order! I am sure the minister can answer, but the question is whether the Chair will allow it to be answered. I will allow Mr Kavanagh the opportunity to rephrase his supplementary question.
Mr KAVANAGH -- If it is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the minister that the cloning technology is now obsolete, does he intend to change government policy?
Mr JENNINGS (Minister for Innovation) -- I thank the President for the opportunity to allow Mr Kavanagh to ask his question because it still warrants some personal opinion of mine and in terms of my responsibilities, but I am happy to outline what the sequence of events would be. In terms of the evidence and in terms of the commitment to research, I do not desert for 1 second from what I have said in my substantive answer. There are still many reasons for us to pursue with vigour the potential for SCNT research.
If the hypothetical situation of Mr Kavanagh's assertion came to be the scientific opinion that I would accept, then subsequently I, as a part of the government, would have some opportunities and obligations to share that with my colleagues and, with the collaboration within the policy development process of the government, to determine what the appropriate policy framework may be, and then, if necessary, to lead to legislation.
But at this point in time the Victorian government absolutely reaffirms its commitment to the legislative framework that we have in place in Victoria, to support the scientific research that we have in place and to consider -- on the basis of the best evidence, the best science and the best ethical considerations -- our position going forward. At this point in time we have got a lot of work to do.
Friday, 17 October 2008
Media 2008-10-15 DLP on Government Services
Press Release
15 October 2008
DLP Pressures Government on Services
At the regional sitting of Victoria's Legislative Council held at Lakes Entrance today, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, Peter Kavanagh succeeded in having a motion passed expressing concern at the state of government services in Victoria.
Mr Kavanagh's motion was largely a consequence of the report into Victoria's health services that was released in early October. The report showed that the quality of services to many patients in Victoria has recently deteriorated.
Mr Kavanagh also said "public transport, dental, ambulance and nursing services in Victoria are also in a sad state."
Mr Kavanagh also said "that last week's passage of the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 will further threaten the availability of GP's and other medical services in Victoria. Hundreds of doctors have said that they will resign as a result of the passage of this Bill and Catholic Maternity and Emergency wards are also under threat as a result of the passage of this Bill."
Mr Kavanagh's motion was passed 18 to 17 votes.
For further comment please contact Peter Kavanagh 03 5222 1503.
15 October 2008
DLP Pressures Government on Services
At the regional sitting of Victoria's Legislative Council held at Lakes Entrance today, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, Peter Kavanagh succeeded in having a motion passed expressing concern at the state of government services in Victoria.
Mr Kavanagh's motion was largely a consequence of the report into Victoria's health services that was released in early October. The report showed that the quality of services to many patients in Victoria has recently deteriorated.
Mr Kavanagh also said "public transport, dental, ambulance and nursing services in Victoria are also in a sad state."
Mr Kavanagh also said "that last week's passage of the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 will further threaten the availability of GP's and other medical services in Victoria. Hundreds of doctors have said that they will resign as a result of the passage of this Bill and Catholic Maternity and Emergency wards are also under threat as a result of the passage of this Bill."
Mr Kavanagh's motion was passed 18 to 17 votes.
For further comment please contact Peter Kavanagh 03 5222 1503.
Hansard 2008-10-15 Victorian Services Deterioration
BACKGROUND:
On 15 OCtober 2008, Mr Peter Kavanagh MLC for Western Victoria Region moved the following motion in the Legislative Council:
"That this house notes with concern the deterioration in the quality of services available to Victorians, including --
(1) an overloaded and degraded public health system;
(2) transport and other infrastructure pressures in Melbourne;
(3) transport and other infrastructure pressures in regional and rural Victoria, particularly in western Victoria; and
(4) a growing divide and disconnect between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria".
Mr Evan Thornley MLC for Southern Metropolitan Region was absent from the chamber for the vote.
Nonetheless the motion did pass on its merits as outlined in Mr Kavanagh’s comments in Parliament on Hansard below:
HANSARD:
Title: GOVERNMENT: SERVICES
House: COUNCIL
Activity:
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 15 October 2008
Page: 4414
GOVERNMENT: SERVICES
Page 4414
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I move:
"That this house notes with concern the deterioration in the quality of services available to Victorians, including --
(1) an overloaded and degraded public health system;
(2) transport and other infrastructure pressures in Melbourne;
(3) transport and other infrastructure pressures in regional and rural Victoria, particularly in western Victoria; and
(4) a growing divide and disconnect between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria".
The motion standing in my name proposes that the house express concern about the quality of services now available to Victorians. It refers in particular to an overloaded and degraded public health system, to transport and other infrastructure pressures in Melbourne, to transport and other infrastructure pressures in regional and rural Victoria, particularly in western Victoria, and to a growing divide and disconnect between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria.
This motion was prompted by reports on Victoria's hospitals released only a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of October. There are reasons to be concerned not only about hospitals but about a range of services in Victoria, including transport, dental, ambulance and nursing services.
In addition to the general quality of services to be concerned about there is the discrepancy between inner and outer Melbourne and indeed the difference between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria.
The first point is that the situation is probably quite a lot worse than has been reported by the government. The Age of 22 September reported:
"Victorian hospitals have been warned not to admit emergency patients to 'phantom wards' or falsify data to secure funding, despite health minister Daniel Andrews' insistence that these practices do not exist.
...
A survey showed that 19 emergency department directors ...
found that almost 40 of them had been 'admitting' patients when they were still in waiting rooms, corridors or on trolleys.
The 'virtual wards' --"
which do not actually exist --
"were used purely for 'creative accounting' to receive funding and avoid 'performance watch', the doctors said".
Page 4415
The situation is probably quite a lot worse than is admitted by the government report. But even before the release of the report it was reported that more than 1500 people have been dying unnecessarily every year in Australian hospitals -- not Victorian hospitals but Australian hospitals -- because of overcrowding. Furthermore, for example, as reported in the Herald Sun of 24 September, a man in his 60s suffering from pneumonia had to wait three days in the emergency ward of a Melbourne hospital because of a lack of beds.
The government's report reveals disturbing information about Victoria's hospital system. The way of reporting has been changed. The Sunday Herald Sun complained about this on 5 October. It said that the previous way of reporting on hospitals in Victoria was clearly understood and was easy to understand, but a few years ago the government changed its system of reporting to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to read, let alone understand.
According to the report that was released a couple of weeks ago, waiting lists for cancer patients and other seriously ill Victorians have more than doubled in the past six months. This raises an extremely challenging situation for many people who know that they have cancer and yet they are being forced to wait for long periods before they can obtain treatment. It is bad enough to be in that situation of having an illness without having to worry about receiving any treatment for it.
The Age reports that more than 100 000 patients were not treated within target times in Victorian emergency departments last year and that the system struggled to cope with soaring demand. It breaks down those figures: 20 000 emergency patients, including stroke victims and those in severe pain and struggling to breathe were not treated within the set time of 10 minutes and so on; 98 000 urgent patients were not seen within 30 minutes; and 85 000 patients were waiting longer than 8 hours due to a lack of emergency beds.
The president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association said the hospital system in Victoria is drowning in patients. It does not have the facilities, it does not have the staffing and it does not have the equipment to look after Victorians. This is a dire situation indeed but the situation with services in Victoria is not restricted to hospitals. Public transport, roads, dental services and the ability to get a consultation to see a GP is deteriorating in Victoria. We all know about the chronic overcrowding on Melbourne's transport system with people unable to get a seat, the risk of cancellations and so on. This is repeated throughout regional Victoria. Not only is the situation in Melbourne bad but it is even worse in regional and rural Victoria.
We know from newspaper reports that inferior health care, transport and facilities for the cities north and west have been left behind.
The report shows how much worse the situation is in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne than the better-off parts of Melbourne. Melburnians living in the western and northern suburbs of Melbourne are second-class citizens, starved of access to health care, transport links, public services and facilities. It is worse outside Melbourne than it is in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne.
To substantiate this, in the outer suburbs of Melbourne only about 1 per cent of people are able to take public transport to work as compared with an average in greater Melbourne of 6.9 per cent. We all know that the facilities in outer Melbourne are not good enough, and this figure underlines that with startling clarity. We know that what happens in Melbourne is worse in Geelong, for example, where people cannot get onto a train and are subject to cancellations. If they can get on the train, they cannot get a seat.
The timetable itself is not a convenient one and does not seem to have been intelligently designed for the people of Geelong. It is similar in Ballarat, which I have talked about in the house before. People are quite often forced to stand on high-speed trains from Ballarat to Melbourne. This is a situation that many people find intolerable. Meanwhile the highway system throughout Western Victoria Region is not up to scratch. There are vast improvements needed throughout the region.
Last year we talked about dental services throughout Victoria in a debate about fluoridation. Mr David Davis, I recall, stood in the chamber and spent hours going through the data on dental services throughout regional Victoria, and the figures were terrible.
Although there have been improvements in certain respects -- I understand Portland, for example, has recently had a big improvement in the quality of dental services available through public facilities -- on the other hand the most recent report in Ballarat says there is an average wait of 52 months for public dental services in Victoria.
Ms Hartland this morning spoke about ambulance services and the pressure they are under throughout Victoria. It was also revealed just yesterday or the day before in Ballarat that home nursing visits have been reduced throughout that area because of funding pressures and deficiencies in resources.
Page 4416
I would like to speak mostly about the availability of the services of doctors, particularly throughout Western Victoria Region. Many doctors throughout western Victoria and I guess the whole state have recently closed their books. Many GPs will no longer see new patients unless they have seen them in the past. We are told that Victoria is facing a deficiency of 1000 medical staff, mostly doctors, by 2009. At the same time Queensland is actively recruiting Victorian doctors. For each doctor who leaves Victoria, the situation, especially in regional Victoria, will become much worse.
The government has taken some action. It has attempted to recruit doctors from the United Kingdom. However, the most recent report says that of the 2500 sought by 2014, so far only 35 doctors have been obtained from the United Kingdom. At the same time the doctors who are in Victoria are being recruited by other states and are leaving.
A lot of these problems require large amounts of money, but I would like to make the point that it seems to me that they are not all about money. There are other policies that can be initiated and adopted that would have a big impact on the availability of GP services throughout Western Victoria Region and would not cost extra money.
Last week we debated the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008. Unfortunately that bill legally forces doctors and nurses to participate in abortions, in spite of warnings from hundreds of doctors in Victoria that if the bill were passed, they would leave Victoria or take early retirement. More than 200 of them signed documents to that effect, and other individuals have been quoted in the press saying that they would leave Victoria if the bill were passed. Of course the bill has been passed, and in my view it is probably contrary to the government's own Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities and contrary to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
However, the point for the purpose of this debate is that that was done despite knowing that it would cause even further damage to the ability of people throughout regional Victoria to see a GP. The government deliberately and with full warning, for ideological reasons, proceeded with a measure that will further degrade the provision of medical services, especially in regional Victoria. In addition we had statements that the passage of the bill would endanger the ongoing work of Catholic maternity and emergency hospitals in Victoria. Nevertheless, the bill was passed.
The government collects huge revenues from the people of Victoria; I think they are now almost double what they were when this government came to office less than nine years ago. It spends huge amounts of money on the sorts of services I have been talking about, but there are good reasons to believe that the Victorian taxpayer is not getting very good value for money.
The motion does not use excessive or florid language; it is worded in measured and moderate language. It is merely a motion to express concern about the state of services in Victoria, particularly in regional Victoria, and I ask all members to support the motion.
...
Page 4436
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- During the course of this debate Mr Viney described my speech as a rant. Neither my speech nor the words of the motion can fairly be described that way. The words of the motion are measured, balanced, fair and moderate. They do not ask for the condemnation of the government, but merely for an expression of concern by this house at the state of services in Victoria. The facts concerning services in Victoria fully warrant such an expression of concern. We have just received news about John Valves in Ballarat; it has unfortunately announced that it is closing with the loss of 130 jobs in that city.
But apart from that, and more explicitly on the theme of services, earlier this month a report on the state of Victoria's hospitals and health care system justifies an expression of concern. There is a wait of up to three days for a bed in an emergency room for people who are in a critical condition. The time patients suffering from cancer are required to wait for treatment has doubled. Throughout Melbourne and regional Victoria the transport system is in obvious crisis. The availability of services is insufficient and the quality of those services that exist is very bad indeed. That is shown by chronic overcrowding not only in Melbourne but also, for example, in Ballarat and Geelong. As I mentioned and as Mr Koch went into detail about, the state of highways in western Victoria is sadly lacking and they need a lot of work.
We have heard of ambulance services in crisis, and we have heard in the last day or two of nursing services in Ballarat being cut back because of insufficient resources.
People in Ballarat are waiting on average 52 months to obtain dental services from public clinics. Doctor services are already under threat throughout Victoria. Earlier this year it was predicted there would be a shortfall of 1000 doctors throughout Victoria by next year. However, what has happened since that prediction was made has made the situation even worse. That includes, for example, the aggressive and successful recruitment of Victorian doctors to Queensland. Also, as I said before, the passage of the Abortion Law Reform Bill last week will make the situation much worse than it would otherwise have been because of the threat of at least 200 doctors in Victoria saying they would leave Victoria if the bill were passed, and it now has been. There is of course the threat to maternity and emergency services that are presently provided through Catholic hospitals.
Page 4437
Mr Viney and Ms Pulford's contributions had a common theme, which was how much the government has spent. That was the main point they made: it was about the government's spending of huge amounts of money on services in Victoria. But that misses the point. The point is not how much has been spent but how much has been achieved. There was very little information from government members about what was achieved. There was an indication of train services that were restored, but that was as close as we got to an indication of what has been achieved.
I note that those train services went over budget by what I think was 1100 per cent or 1250 per cent -- something of that order. Neither Mr Viney nor Ms Pulford mentioned those, but they do seem to be relevant facts in the course of this debate. Ms Darveniza talked about the north-south pipeline. I believe most people who are affected regard that not as a government service but a government disservice.
This motion is not an extreme one. It is not a rant. It is an expression of concern. There are reasons to be concerned about the quality of services in Victoria at the present time. Is the government saying that it is not concerned by what is happening to hospital services in Victoria? Is the Australian Labor Party not concerned about the quality of dental services in regional and rural Victoria? Is it not concerned about the quality of transport that is offered to people throughout Victoria, not only in Melbourne but in Geelong, Ballarat and other places? The conclusion is inevitable that, if the government votes against this motion, it is saying that it is not concerned about things that it ought to be concerned about.
...
House divided on motion:
Ayes, 18
...
Kavanagh, Mr
...
Noes, 17
...
Motion agreed to.
On 15 OCtober 2008, Mr Peter Kavanagh MLC for Western Victoria Region moved the following motion in the Legislative Council:
"That this house notes with concern the deterioration in the quality of services available to Victorians, including --
(1) an overloaded and degraded public health system;
(2) transport and other infrastructure pressures in Melbourne;
(3) transport and other infrastructure pressures in regional and rural Victoria, particularly in western Victoria; and
(4) a growing divide and disconnect between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria".
Mr Evan Thornley MLC for Southern Metropolitan Region was absent from the chamber for the vote.
Nonetheless the motion did pass on its merits as outlined in Mr Kavanagh’s comments in Parliament on Hansard below:
HANSARD:
Title: GOVERNMENT: SERVICES
House: COUNCIL
Activity:
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 15 October 2008
Page: 4414
GOVERNMENT: SERVICES
Page 4414
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I move:
"That this house notes with concern the deterioration in the quality of services available to Victorians, including --
(1) an overloaded and degraded public health system;
(2) transport and other infrastructure pressures in Melbourne;
(3) transport and other infrastructure pressures in regional and rural Victoria, particularly in western Victoria; and
(4) a growing divide and disconnect between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria".
The motion standing in my name proposes that the house express concern about the quality of services now available to Victorians. It refers in particular to an overloaded and degraded public health system, to transport and other infrastructure pressures in Melbourne, to transport and other infrastructure pressures in regional and rural Victoria, particularly in western Victoria, and to a growing divide and disconnect between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria.
This motion was prompted by reports on Victoria's hospitals released only a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of October. There are reasons to be concerned not only about hospitals but about a range of services in Victoria, including transport, dental, ambulance and nursing services.
In addition to the general quality of services to be concerned about there is the discrepancy between inner and outer Melbourne and indeed the difference between Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria.
The first point is that the situation is probably quite a lot worse than has been reported by the government. The Age of 22 September reported:
"Victorian hospitals have been warned not to admit emergency patients to 'phantom wards' or falsify data to secure funding, despite health minister Daniel Andrews' insistence that these practices do not exist.
...
A survey showed that 19 emergency department directors ...
found that almost 40 of them had been 'admitting' patients when they were still in waiting rooms, corridors or on trolleys.
The 'virtual wards' --"
which do not actually exist --
"were used purely for 'creative accounting' to receive funding and avoid 'performance watch', the doctors said".
Page 4415
The situation is probably quite a lot worse than is admitted by the government report. But even before the release of the report it was reported that more than 1500 people have been dying unnecessarily every year in Australian hospitals -- not Victorian hospitals but Australian hospitals -- because of overcrowding. Furthermore, for example, as reported in the Herald Sun of 24 September, a man in his 60s suffering from pneumonia had to wait three days in the emergency ward of a Melbourne hospital because of a lack of beds.
The government's report reveals disturbing information about Victoria's hospital system. The way of reporting has been changed. The Sunday Herald Sun complained about this on 5 October. It said that the previous way of reporting on hospitals in Victoria was clearly understood and was easy to understand, but a few years ago the government changed its system of reporting to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to read, let alone understand.
According to the report that was released a couple of weeks ago, waiting lists for cancer patients and other seriously ill Victorians have more than doubled in the past six months. This raises an extremely challenging situation for many people who know that they have cancer and yet they are being forced to wait for long periods before they can obtain treatment. It is bad enough to be in that situation of having an illness without having to worry about receiving any treatment for it.
The Age reports that more than 100 000 patients were not treated within target times in Victorian emergency departments last year and that the system struggled to cope with soaring demand. It breaks down those figures: 20 000 emergency patients, including stroke victims and those in severe pain and struggling to breathe were not treated within the set time of 10 minutes and so on; 98 000 urgent patients were not seen within 30 minutes; and 85 000 patients were waiting longer than 8 hours due to a lack of emergency beds.
The president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association said the hospital system in Victoria is drowning in patients. It does not have the facilities, it does not have the staffing and it does not have the equipment to look after Victorians. This is a dire situation indeed but the situation with services in Victoria is not restricted to hospitals. Public transport, roads, dental services and the ability to get a consultation to see a GP is deteriorating in Victoria. We all know about the chronic overcrowding on Melbourne's transport system with people unable to get a seat, the risk of cancellations and so on. This is repeated throughout regional Victoria. Not only is the situation in Melbourne bad but it is even worse in regional and rural Victoria.
We know from newspaper reports that inferior health care, transport and facilities for the cities north and west have been left behind.
The report shows how much worse the situation is in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne than the better-off parts of Melbourne. Melburnians living in the western and northern suburbs of Melbourne are second-class citizens, starved of access to health care, transport links, public services and facilities. It is worse outside Melbourne than it is in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne.
To substantiate this, in the outer suburbs of Melbourne only about 1 per cent of people are able to take public transport to work as compared with an average in greater Melbourne of 6.9 per cent. We all know that the facilities in outer Melbourne are not good enough, and this figure underlines that with startling clarity. We know that what happens in Melbourne is worse in Geelong, for example, where people cannot get onto a train and are subject to cancellations. If they can get on the train, they cannot get a seat.
The timetable itself is not a convenient one and does not seem to have been intelligently designed for the people of Geelong. It is similar in Ballarat, which I have talked about in the house before. People are quite often forced to stand on high-speed trains from Ballarat to Melbourne. This is a situation that many people find intolerable. Meanwhile the highway system throughout Western Victoria Region is not up to scratch. There are vast improvements needed throughout the region.
Last year we talked about dental services throughout Victoria in a debate about fluoridation. Mr David Davis, I recall, stood in the chamber and spent hours going through the data on dental services throughout regional Victoria, and the figures were terrible.
Although there have been improvements in certain respects -- I understand Portland, for example, has recently had a big improvement in the quality of dental services available through public facilities -- on the other hand the most recent report in Ballarat says there is an average wait of 52 months for public dental services in Victoria.
Ms Hartland this morning spoke about ambulance services and the pressure they are under throughout Victoria. It was also revealed just yesterday or the day before in Ballarat that home nursing visits have been reduced throughout that area because of funding pressures and deficiencies in resources.
Page 4416
I would like to speak mostly about the availability of the services of doctors, particularly throughout Western Victoria Region. Many doctors throughout western Victoria and I guess the whole state have recently closed their books. Many GPs will no longer see new patients unless they have seen them in the past. We are told that Victoria is facing a deficiency of 1000 medical staff, mostly doctors, by 2009. At the same time Queensland is actively recruiting Victorian doctors. For each doctor who leaves Victoria, the situation, especially in regional Victoria, will become much worse.
The government has taken some action. It has attempted to recruit doctors from the United Kingdom. However, the most recent report says that of the 2500 sought by 2014, so far only 35 doctors have been obtained from the United Kingdom. At the same time the doctors who are in Victoria are being recruited by other states and are leaving.
A lot of these problems require large amounts of money, but I would like to make the point that it seems to me that they are not all about money. There are other policies that can be initiated and adopted that would have a big impact on the availability of GP services throughout Western Victoria Region and would not cost extra money.
Last week we debated the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008. Unfortunately that bill legally forces doctors and nurses to participate in abortions, in spite of warnings from hundreds of doctors in Victoria that if the bill were passed, they would leave Victoria or take early retirement. More than 200 of them signed documents to that effect, and other individuals have been quoted in the press saying that they would leave Victoria if the bill were passed. Of course the bill has been passed, and in my view it is probably contrary to the government's own Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities and contrary to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
However, the point for the purpose of this debate is that that was done despite knowing that it would cause even further damage to the ability of people throughout regional Victoria to see a GP. The government deliberately and with full warning, for ideological reasons, proceeded with a measure that will further degrade the provision of medical services, especially in regional Victoria. In addition we had statements that the passage of the bill would endanger the ongoing work of Catholic maternity and emergency hospitals in Victoria. Nevertheless, the bill was passed.
The government collects huge revenues from the people of Victoria; I think they are now almost double what they were when this government came to office less than nine years ago. It spends huge amounts of money on the sorts of services I have been talking about, but there are good reasons to believe that the Victorian taxpayer is not getting very good value for money.
The motion does not use excessive or florid language; it is worded in measured and moderate language. It is merely a motion to express concern about the state of services in Victoria, particularly in regional Victoria, and I ask all members to support the motion.
...
Page 4436
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- During the course of this debate Mr Viney described my speech as a rant. Neither my speech nor the words of the motion can fairly be described that way. The words of the motion are measured, balanced, fair and moderate. They do not ask for the condemnation of the government, but merely for an expression of concern by this house at the state of services in Victoria. The facts concerning services in Victoria fully warrant such an expression of concern. We have just received news about John Valves in Ballarat; it has unfortunately announced that it is closing with the loss of 130 jobs in that city.
But apart from that, and more explicitly on the theme of services, earlier this month a report on the state of Victoria's hospitals and health care system justifies an expression of concern. There is a wait of up to three days for a bed in an emergency room for people who are in a critical condition. The time patients suffering from cancer are required to wait for treatment has doubled. Throughout Melbourne and regional Victoria the transport system is in obvious crisis. The availability of services is insufficient and the quality of those services that exist is very bad indeed. That is shown by chronic overcrowding not only in Melbourne but also, for example, in Ballarat and Geelong. As I mentioned and as Mr Koch went into detail about, the state of highways in western Victoria is sadly lacking and they need a lot of work.
We have heard of ambulance services in crisis, and we have heard in the last day or two of nursing services in Ballarat being cut back because of insufficient resources.
People in Ballarat are waiting on average 52 months to obtain dental services from public clinics. Doctor services are already under threat throughout Victoria. Earlier this year it was predicted there would be a shortfall of 1000 doctors throughout Victoria by next year. However, what has happened since that prediction was made has made the situation even worse. That includes, for example, the aggressive and successful recruitment of Victorian doctors to Queensland. Also, as I said before, the passage of the Abortion Law Reform Bill last week will make the situation much worse than it would otherwise have been because of the threat of at least 200 doctors in Victoria saying they would leave Victoria if the bill were passed, and it now has been. There is of course the threat to maternity and emergency services that are presently provided through Catholic hospitals.
Page 4437
Mr Viney and Ms Pulford's contributions had a common theme, which was how much the government has spent. That was the main point they made: it was about the government's spending of huge amounts of money on services in Victoria. But that misses the point. The point is not how much has been spent but how much has been achieved. There was very little information from government members about what was achieved. There was an indication of train services that were restored, but that was as close as we got to an indication of what has been achieved.
I note that those train services went over budget by what I think was 1100 per cent or 1250 per cent -- something of that order. Neither Mr Viney nor Ms Pulford mentioned those, but they do seem to be relevant facts in the course of this debate. Ms Darveniza talked about the north-south pipeline. I believe most people who are affected regard that not as a government service but a government disservice.
This motion is not an extreme one. It is not a rant. It is an expression of concern. There are reasons to be concerned about the quality of services in Victoria at the present time. Is the government saying that it is not concerned by what is happening to hospital services in Victoria? Is the Australian Labor Party not concerned about the quality of dental services in regional and rural Victoria? Is it not concerned about the quality of transport that is offered to people throughout Victoria, not only in Melbourne but in Geelong, Ballarat and other places? The conclusion is inevitable that, if the government votes against this motion, it is saying that it is not concerned about things that it ought to be concerned about.
...
House divided on motion:
Ayes, 18
...
Kavanagh, Mr
...
Noes, 17
...
Motion agreed to.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Media 2008-10-14 DLP Asks Governor Stop Abort Bill
Press Release
14 October 2008
DLP Asks Governor to Stop Abortion Bill
DLP MLC for Western Victoria, Peter Kavanagh has faxed the Governor of Victoria Professor De Kretser, asking him to withhold Royal Assent for the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008, on the basis that it was not properly passed by the Victorian Parliament.
"There are good reasons to conclude that the Abortion Bill contravenes Victoria's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. Furthermore passage of this Bill through the Parliament did not comply with requirements specified in the Charter. The Charter requires certain procedures before a bill that affects rights guaranteed under the Charter can be properly passed by the Parliament. The Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 did not comply with those requirements. On the basis of this deficiency I have asked the Governor to withhold Royal Assent for the Bill", Mr Kavanagh said.
For further comment please contact Peter Kavanagh 03 5222 1503.
14 October 2008
DLP Asks Governor to Stop Abortion Bill
DLP MLC for Western Victoria, Peter Kavanagh has faxed the Governor of Victoria Professor De Kretser, asking him to withhold Royal Assent for the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008, on the basis that it was not properly passed by the Victorian Parliament.
"There are good reasons to conclude that the Abortion Bill contravenes Victoria's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. Furthermore passage of this Bill through the Parliament did not comply with requirements specified in the Charter. The Charter requires certain procedures before a bill that affects rights guaranteed under the Charter can be properly passed by the Parliament. The Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 did not comply with those requirements. On the basis of this deficiency I have asked the Governor to withhold Royal Assent for the Bill", Mr Kavanagh said.
For further comment please contact Peter Kavanagh 03 5222 1503.
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Media 2008-08-19 DLP Questions Abortion Report
Press Release
19 August 2008
DLP Questions VLRC Abortion Report in Parliament
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MP for Western Victoria, today gave notice of a motion expressing "deep concern" at the failures of the Victorian Law Reform Commission's Report on abortion.
Mr Kavanagh said, "the Report is clearly not the result of honest attempts to find the truth. For example there is overwhelming evidence that abortion is agonisingly painful to many fetuses and is also harmful to women. The VLRC report ignored the preponderance of evidence and accepted dissenting, minority opinions on these important topics".
Please find copy of the Notice of Motion below.
For further comment please contact Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
----------------------------------------------------------------
MR KAVANAGH - NOTICE OF MOTION
I give notice that, on the next day of meeting, I will move —
That this House notes with deep concern the failures of the Victorian Law Reform Commission's Final Report on the Law of Abortion, in that the Report either ignored or dismissed a large volume of cogent, valuable scientific evidence showing physical and mental health risks of abortion to women and took no adequate or appropriate steps to provide the Government with that information, and further notes that the deficiencies in the Report include —
(1) the failure to acknowledge the risks of psychological damage, depression, suicide, the abortion breast cancer link, infertility and damage to the cervix and uterus resulting in pre-term births in subsequent pregnancies with concomitant problems including cerebral palsy;
(2) opposition to mandated information provisions;
(3) opposition to mandatory counselling;
(4) opposition to any anti-coercion legislation thereby leaving women vulnerable to pressure by husbands, partners, family and others to have abortions which are not genuinely of their own choosing;
(5) the failure to recommend banning partial-birth abortion, now banned in the United States of America;
(6) the failure to seriously address the issue of fetal pain; and
(7) the failure to address the role of abortion in destroying evidence of the sexual abuse of young women and the obligation of all medical practitioners to report evidence of child abuse.
19 August 2008
DLP Questions VLRC Abortion Report in Parliament
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MP for Western Victoria, today gave notice of a motion expressing "deep concern" at the failures of the Victorian Law Reform Commission's Report on abortion.
Mr Kavanagh said, "the Report is clearly not the result of honest attempts to find the truth. For example there is overwhelming evidence that abortion is agonisingly painful to many fetuses and is also harmful to women. The VLRC report ignored the preponderance of evidence and accepted dissenting, minority opinions on these important topics".
Please find copy of the Notice of Motion below.
For further comment please contact Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
----------------------------------------------------------------
MR KAVANAGH - NOTICE OF MOTION
I give notice that, on the next day of meeting, I will move —
That this House notes with deep concern the failures of the Victorian Law Reform Commission's Final Report on the Law of Abortion, in that the Report either ignored or dismissed a large volume of cogent, valuable scientific evidence showing physical and mental health risks of abortion to women and took no adequate or appropriate steps to provide the Government with that information, and further notes that the deficiencies in the Report include —
(1) the failure to acknowledge the risks of psychological damage, depression, suicide, the abortion breast cancer link, infertility and damage to the cervix and uterus resulting in pre-term births in subsequent pregnancies with concomitant problems including cerebral palsy;
(2) opposition to mandated information provisions;
(3) opposition to mandatory counselling;
(4) opposition to any anti-coercion legislation thereby leaving women vulnerable to pressure by husbands, partners, family and others to have abortions which are not genuinely of their own choosing;
(5) the failure to recommend banning partial-birth abortion, now banned in the United States of America;
(6) the failure to seriously address the issue of fetal pain; and
(7) the failure to address the role of abortion in destroying evidence of the sexual abuse of young women and the obligation of all medical practitioners to report evidence of child abuse.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Hansard 2008-07-30 Physician Assisted Dying Bill
BACKGROUND:
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, on 30 July 2008 led a charge against the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 with a major speech in the Legislative Council.
"A mood against the Bill certainly seemed to develop during the course of the debate. I am now CONFIDENT that the Bill will not be passed" Mr Kavanagh said in a press release the following day.
The full text of Mr Kavanagh's speech against the Bill is below:
HANSARD:
Title: MEDICAL TREATMENT (PHYSICIAN ASSISTED DYING) BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 30 July 2008
Page: 2802
Page 2802
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- As was pointed out by Ms Broad, we human beings possess a questionable gift -- the gift of knowing that we are all mortal, that there is no getting out of our earthly existence alive. Anxiety over the inevitability of death is accentuated by the heartbreaking experiences that probably all of us have had in witnessing people we love suffering in the course of dying, sometimes over protracted periods. The bill before us is motivated by compassion engendered by such experiences. It is entirely appropriate that we be motivated by compassion, but it is also obligatory for us to use our intellect, our reasoning and our understanding of human nature gained from ourselves and our fellows. The application of these tools and insights to the challenge of painful death makes it clear that any conceivable good that could come from the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be greatly outweighed by its harmful consequences.
I observe that, contrary to assumptions and assertions by some proponents and opponents of this bill, it is not actually about suicide. The bill is not about people killing themselves, but its legal parts relate to providing and/or administering the means of ending another person's life. Contributing to the death of another person, even one who apparently volunteers, of course raises issues and legal principles quite different from those involved in the consideration of a suicide. Not only our legal system but also our very civilisation have long been predicated on the premise that innocent human life is of such value that it may be taken permissibly only in the individual or collective defence of life itself. This principle, the heart and soul of our legal system, protects us all. Damaging, denying or compromising that principle reduces the protection provided by our legal system and the dominant social attitudes to which our laws contribute.
The principle of the value of innocent human life demands that lives be respected even by barons and kings. This principle was not established quickly or easily. It took centuries of inculcating what were initially revolutionary concepts about the nature and importance of the individual. However, the fact that this process took a long time and struggle to establish does not mean that its undoing would require a correspondingly long period or that the process would be necessarily as tortuous. An unfortunate fact of life is that destruction is much simpler, quicker, easier and cheaper than construction. The greatest building in the world that took centuries or generations of hard work, genius, material and wealth might be destroyed by a single individual with a few seconds of concentration and a match. Despite the best intentions of many of its proponents, the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be a spark conflagrating the most important principle that is the basis of our legal system and civilisation.
Passage of this bill would establish at least two new principles. First, the lives of certain categories of people will not be protected by the legal system. Second, that killing certain people is rendering assistance to them. Actions that are inherently wrong have regrettable reactions only some of which are foreseeable. The consequences of the passage of this bill that we can foresee include generally diminishing the value of human life not only by the state but also by individuals.
The inculcation of the principle that life is of inestimable value has contributed to a sense of awe over the taking of another's life. That awe, and the inhibition and reluctance at the taking of another life, would be diminished if the bill is passed, because the law not only expresses our culture but also helps to inform and shape it. If this bill is passed then the restraint the law has traditionally contributed to imposing on people in situations where there is
Page 2803
temptation to take another person's life would be weakened.
This process would not be conscious, deliberate or even considered. It would be automatic but influenced by the devaluation of human life which this bill entails. For example, a home burglar who is confronted by an elderly resident would know, if this bill is passed, that there are innocent people, especially elderly people, who the law allows to be killed. The home invader might even reason, taking his cue from the law, that causing a quick death might even be doing that bothersome old person a favour. Passage of this bill would weaken the inhibitions felt at the taking of human life in every situation of conflict or anger -- whether, for example, it is two people fighting in a bar or a driver engulfed by road rage. If the bill diminishes respect for the lives of others, as it would, what would be its effects on attitudes towards assaulting or otherwise harming others short of death, let alone by stealing or damaging their property?
Even more profound and disturbing than the effect on how individuals assess the value of the lives of others would be the effect that the passage of this bill had on how people see themselves. The elderly and sick already fear being a burden on their loved ones and on the community at large. Would not the knowledge that some elderly and sick are volunteering to be killed cause some of the elderly and sick to view continuing to live -- that is, failing to volunteer to be killed -- as an act of selfishness? Indeed, as pointed out by Palliative Care Nurses Australia in Commentary on the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008, famous proponents of euthanasia in Australia have implicitly implied or argued that it would be altruistic for those who feel that their lives are a burden to seek assistance to die.
In addition to the implicit pressure that passage of this bill would put on the vulnerable themselves, there would be explicit pressure from other people.
The bill purports to safeguard the elderly against pressure from relatives and friends by prohibiting those involved in a death from inheriting from the deceased. This safeguard is naive and would be almost totally ineffective. First, the person encouraging the sick person to volunteer to be killed need not be an agent under the bill. Second, the encourager may not need a will at all to inherit property. Third, the benefits to the encourager may not be of a financial or material nature at all. There are many other benefits that could come from a person apart from money or property. The death of the sufferer might, for example, simply relieve the encourager of inconvenience, for any encouragement that was given will be nearly impossible to prove after the death of the person who volunteers to be killed.
It is easy to envisage thousands of types of motivations for seeing the death of another person. One can also imagine thousands of scenarios in which this encouragement might take place.
It will probably not be in the form of a demand; it will not be angry or direct. Betrayal, as we know, is almost always done with a kiss. Suggestions to volunteer to be killed will be 'nurtured in smiles and in soft deceitful wiles', to quote the poem.
We could imagine, for example, a man going to see his mother-in-law. He has not seen her for quite a while but he drops in unexpectedly and they have a cup of tea together. He says, 'You know, Mother, you have had this problem, this diabetes, for a while now, you are a good age, you are over 60 years old and you are getting on. There is that arthritis you get every year, and life is not very good these days. Don't you think you ought to tell them that you have had enough and that you cannot take it any more? Your daughter comes to see you every week and it is taking her away from the kids. We have got our own lives to lead. We are very concerned about you, but don't you think you owe it to the kids to volunteer?'. There are many scenarios along those lines that we could imagine.
This bill rests on several false premises. One premise is that a person in severe pain is in a position to make rational, monumental decisions. In fact, a person in this condition is in precisely the kind of state which prevents them making an important decision, let alone a life-and-death decision.
The bill presumes that medical science is capable of making consistently accurate diagnoses and prognoses. It presumes a 100 per cent success rate. In recent years two high-profile cases in Australia involving euthanasia, one in New South Wales and the other in Northern Territory, demonstrated not a 100 per cent success rate but a 100 per cent failure rate in medical diagnoses and prognoses. In both cases, while alive the deceased had been medically diagnosed as dying from their illnesses. In both cases, autopsies after euthanasia deaths revealed that neither of them had terminal illnesses. It is also worth noting in this context that this bill does not require autopsies to be performed on deceased persons who died pursuant to this legislation.
Under clause 6 the sufferer may revoke a certificate of request to be killed. If the person is unable physically to do so, this revocation may be done by the sufferer's agent. But what of the sufferer who, firstly, has changed his or her mind but is unable to express his or her new
Page 2804
wishes; and secondly, what of an agent who does not revoke the certificate on the sufferer's behalf? What of it? That sufferer will be killed pursuant to this bill but without his or her consent.
Passage of this bill would make it legally mandatory to officially declare falsehoods in important documents. Clause 16 requires that the cause of death of a person killed by euthanasia be recorded in the death certificate as the condition which encouraged the deceased person to volunteer, if indeed they did volunteer, to be killed. As explained by Aristotle two and a half thousand years ago, causation is a complex concept both in practice and in theory. It is not so complex, however, that the declaration of cause of death can honestly lend itself to the degree of distortion required by this bill.
The cause of death of a person who kills himself following the breakdown of a marriage is surely suicide and not divorce.
In the case of a person who is killed because the killer was angered by something about the deceased, then the cause of death is surely homicide, rather than whatever was the reason for the killer's anger. This bill legally demands that death certificates be falsified. The law should not mandate the uttering of falsehoods.
The deception associated with this bill is not restricted to falsehoods in death certificates. The language of the bill is chillingly Orwellian. Facilitating another's death by providing a poison or even pouring that poison down the throat of another person is categorised by this bill not as 'murder', 'killing' or even 'mercy killing', but repeatedly it is called 'assistance'.
Intolerable pain is referred to repeatedly but defined only as profound suffering and/or distress, whether physical, psychological or existential -- that is, intolerable to the patient.
A literal definition of intolerable pain would mean pain that cannot be tolerated -- that is, pain that kills the patient. Though logical, this cannot be what is meant. It must mean severe suffering of some kind but this is extremely subjective. There are really no satisfactory objective criteria possible by which intolerable pain can be measured: not in the bill and not in medical science.
As we in prosperous advanced societies grow weaker, the boundaries of intolerable suffering will grow ever larger. Combined with a sharply increasing acceptance of killing, if this bill is passed, the acceptable definition of 'intolerable suffering' would no doubt quickly balloon out of all present recognition. The very title of this bill is deceptive. It is called the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008. It is not about medical treatment at all. Medicine is a branch of science dealing with healing and postponing death.
This bill is about the opposite -- unnaturally shortening life. An act is not necessarily medical in nature simply because it is performed by someone wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around their neck. The so-called medical treatment that would come from this bill would be no more medical than Dr Mengele's experiments or the actions of Dr Harold Shipman, who murdered many elderly patients in Britain in order to inherit from them.
This bill pays only lip-service to the value of life. This bill aimed at ending lives prematurely claims that 'life is precious'. That this is only lip-service is seen by the fact that the bill, under clause 4, while saying that physicians should treat requests by patients to be killed with 'caution', provides no penalties at all for failure to exercise that caution. On the other hand, under clause 9, penalties are imposed on physicians who refuse to help kill patients and do not refer patients to other physicians who may agree with this request to be killed. The right of conscientious objection is thus removed from the bill.
It would make it a criminal offence in some circumstances for doctors and nurses not to participate in the process of killing another person. Pursuant to the bill there are also strong penalties for physicians who try to resuscitate patients who take poison and are dying. Resuscitating a dying person actually becomes a criminal offence in certain circumstances under this bill. That criminal offence is punishable with a fine of up to 1000 penalty units and imprisonment of up to five years.
The word 'dignity', though not dignity itself, also recurs throughout this bill. What is meant by dignity? What seems to be meant is continence and a lack of pain. Is it dignified to end life prematurely? Is there really dignity in deliberately leaving loved ones forever, before it was necessary to do so? I think not. In my opinion there is more dignity in a life lived to its natural conclusion, possibly in spite of pain and incontinence.
This bill is not supported by the Australian Medical Association. Similar proposed legislation around the world is strongly opposed by many medical associations. Many physicians in Victoria strongly oppose the provisions of this bill. Some doctors in western Victoria have privately expressed the intention to take early retirement if this bill is passed. They say if this bill is passed they would rather leave the medical profession than remain part of an occupation which has fundamentally changed in nature from attempting to heal or treat patients in any circumstances to participating in the deliberate killing of innocent people.
Page 2805
Trust is surely an essential component of a doctor-patient relationship and is dependent on a patient believing that a doctor will do his or her best for the patient in all circumstances. How could this bill not damage that trust, and how could it not therefore do injury to the medical profession and the efficacy of treatment, especially for the elderly? Many elderly people in Holland now fear doctors just as many Aboriginals in the Northern Territory feared doctors and refused to seek treatment when similar legislation was active. In the case of the Dutch at least, their fears are unfortunately not without foundation. Although Holland's euthanasia laws initially had strict safeguards, with the passage of time they have been watered down. Contrary to the claims of Ms Broad, there are now cases of the medical killing of the elderly and the sick and handicapped, especially babies who do not genuinely volunteer to be killed.
The truth is that whatever safeguards are initially imposed will be eroded over time.
Ms Broad said it is up to the Parliament to make laws and the laws cannot be changed without our permission. While the letter of the law may not be changed without our permission, the practical effect of the law is changed every day without reference to Parliament. In Victoria we have laws that say that technically it is illegal to perform an abortion, for example. At the same time in Victoria we have about 30 000 abortions paid for by the commonwealth government and the taxpayer. The letter of the law and the reality of the law are two quite different things, as I think Ms Broad will understand.
Why will these safeguards be watered down over time? The reason is that once it becomes accepted in law and in principle that killing people can be 'assisting' them, then the floodgates are opened and restraints and inhibitions on the taking of imperfect lives are washed away. Expert analysis of the Oregon act, which is the model for the bill before us, has concluded that in respect of the safeguards in the Oregon act:
"The evidence strongly suggests that these safeguards are circumvented in ways that are harmful to patients".
Furthermore, an editorial in the Oregonian of 8 March 2005 said that their system of euthanasia, which this bill is based on, is 'a system that seems rigged to avoid finding' answers. In practice what will happen is that it will very quickly become clear which physicians are pro-euthanasia. There will probably be lists available on the internet -- certainly by telephone, if not on the internet -- of doctors who will promote euthanasia and who will not, I am afraid, contrary to the assertions of Ms Broad, be as devoted to finding cures for patients with difficulties as they will be to assisting them to end their lives.
Palliative care is a relatively new but rapidly developing area of medicine that holds great promise.
The passage of this bill would detract from the considerable achievements being made in the promotion of palliative care and in the standards and effectiveness of palliative care. As the Victorian division of the World Federation of Doctors who Respect Human Life claimed in a recent letter to MPs:
"Recent replacement of oral morphine with methadone improves the patient's quality of life ..."
This is being done now for people who are dying in pain; their lives are being improved. This methadone allows for the reduction in sedation and allows both a higher dose of opiate and more activity on the part of the patient. As information from Palliative Care Nurses Australia demonstrates, the standards of palliative care now possible make it feasible for the vast majority of people to experience a fulfilling and relatively pain-free death.
There is evidence that the more doctors know about palliative care, the more hostile they become to euthanasia. Even in the Netherlands over the last two or three years, the rate of euthanasia has begun to decline very slightly. This has been attributed to the increasing familiarity of many Dutch physicians with palliative care methods.
Research shows that while physical illness is often a trigger for despair, it is the depression and not the underlying illness itself which motivates most of those who are volunteering overseas for euthanasia. Crucially, to quote from an article by leading specialists in the Michigan Law Review of last month, those who request euthanasia in Oregon:
"... are [almost] always ambivalent about their desire for death".
What the authors are saying is that it depends on which day you get the patient as to whether they are volunteering for death or not; those who volunteer today may be quite unwilling tomorrow.
The end of life can be traumatic. One of our best features as human beings is to empathise with the suffering of others. Sometimes our empathy is even inflated by projecting onto the sufferer our reaction to what looks really horrible but perhaps is not actually as bad as it looks. In Victoria a person may legally refuse life-prolonging treatment and keep taking only pain relieving medication if that is their desire and their choice. This is entirely proper, because in such a
Page 2806
situation the patient will be killed by his or her illness and not, as proposed by this bill, through the intervention of another person.
The passage of this bill would have a wide range of profoundly detrimental effects. It would diminish the protection offered to the lives of all people that is provided by the law and the social attitudes to which the law contributes. As explained, the bill, even as presently written, will allow people who do not genuinely volunteer, to be killed. Even beyond that, the bill's safeguards, although initially observed, would weaken over time.
There are likely to be other long-term consequences that we cannot yet envisage. We can be sure that these consequences will be pernicious, because they will emanate from initiatives which, while nobly motivated, are wrong in principle. It is wrong in principle to deal with the problems of human beings by killing them.
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, on 30 July 2008 led a charge against the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 with a major speech in the Legislative Council.
"A mood against the Bill certainly seemed to develop during the course of the debate. I am now CONFIDENT that the Bill will not be passed" Mr Kavanagh said in a press release the following day.
The full text of Mr Kavanagh's speech against the Bill is below:
HANSARD:
Title: MEDICAL TREATMENT (PHYSICIAN ASSISTED DYING) BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 30 July 2008
Page: 2802
Page 2802
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- As was pointed out by Ms Broad, we human beings possess a questionable gift -- the gift of knowing that we are all mortal, that there is no getting out of our earthly existence alive. Anxiety over the inevitability of death is accentuated by the heartbreaking experiences that probably all of us have had in witnessing people we love suffering in the course of dying, sometimes over protracted periods. The bill before us is motivated by compassion engendered by such experiences. It is entirely appropriate that we be motivated by compassion, but it is also obligatory for us to use our intellect, our reasoning and our understanding of human nature gained from ourselves and our fellows. The application of these tools and insights to the challenge of painful death makes it clear that any conceivable good that could come from the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be greatly outweighed by its harmful consequences.
I observe that, contrary to assumptions and assertions by some proponents and opponents of this bill, it is not actually about suicide. The bill is not about people killing themselves, but its legal parts relate to providing and/or administering the means of ending another person's life. Contributing to the death of another person, even one who apparently volunteers, of course raises issues and legal principles quite different from those involved in the consideration of a suicide. Not only our legal system but also our very civilisation have long been predicated on the premise that innocent human life is of such value that it may be taken permissibly only in the individual or collective defence of life itself. This principle, the heart and soul of our legal system, protects us all. Damaging, denying or compromising that principle reduces the protection provided by our legal system and the dominant social attitudes to which our laws contribute.
The principle of the value of innocent human life demands that lives be respected even by barons and kings. This principle was not established quickly or easily. It took centuries of inculcating what were initially revolutionary concepts about the nature and importance of the individual. However, the fact that this process took a long time and struggle to establish does not mean that its undoing would require a correspondingly long period or that the process would be necessarily as tortuous. An unfortunate fact of life is that destruction is much simpler, quicker, easier and cheaper than construction. The greatest building in the world that took centuries or generations of hard work, genius, material and wealth might be destroyed by a single individual with a few seconds of concentration and a match. Despite the best intentions of many of its proponents, the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be a spark conflagrating the most important principle that is the basis of our legal system and civilisation.
Passage of this bill would establish at least two new principles. First, the lives of certain categories of people will not be protected by the legal system. Second, that killing certain people is rendering assistance to them. Actions that are inherently wrong have regrettable reactions only some of which are foreseeable. The consequences of the passage of this bill that we can foresee include generally diminishing the value of human life not only by the state but also by individuals.
The inculcation of the principle that life is of inestimable value has contributed to a sense of awe over the taking of another's life. That awe, and the inhibition and reluctance at the taking of another life, would be diminished if the bill is passed, because the law not only expresses our culture but also helps to inform and shape it. If this bill is passed then the restraint the law has traditionally contributed to imposing on people in situations where there is
Page 2803
temptation to take another person's life would be weakened.
This process would not be conscious, deliberate or even considered. It would be automatic but influenced by the devaluation of human life which this bill entails. For example, a home burglar who is confronted by an elderly resident would know, if this bill is passed, that there are innocent people, especially elderly people, who the law allows to be killed. The home invader might even reason, taking his cue from the law, that causing a quick death might even be doing that bothersome old person a favour. Passage of this bill would weaken the inhibitions felt at the taking of human life in every situation of conflict or anger -- whether, for example, it is two people fighting in a bar or a driver engulfed by road rage. If the bill diminishes respect for the lives of others, as it would, what would be its effects on attitudes towards assaulting or otherwise harming others short of death, let alone by stealing or damaging their property?
Even more profound and disturbing than the effect on how individuals assess the value of the lives of others would be the effect that the passage of this bill had on how people see themselves. The elderly and sick already fear being a burden on their loved ones and on the community at large. Would not the knowledge that some elderly and sick are volunteering to be killed cause some of the elderly and sick to view continuing to live -- that is, failing to volunteer to be killed -- as an act of selfishness? Indeed, as pointed out by Palliative Care Nurses Australia in Commentary on the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008, famous proponents of euthanasia in Australia have implicitly implied or argued that it would be altruistic for those who feel that their lives are a burden to seek assistance to die.
In addition to the implicit pressure that passage of this bill would put on the vulnerable themselves, there would be explicit pressure from other people.
The bill purports to safeguard the elderly against pressure from relatives and friends by prohibiting those involved in a death from inheriting from the deceased. This safeguard is naive and would be almost totally ineffective. First, the person encouraging the sick person to volunteer to be killed need not be an agent under the bill. Second, the encourager may not need a will at all to inherit property. Third, the benefits to the encourager may not be of a financial or material nature at all. There are many other benefits that could come from a person apart from money or property. The death of the sufferer might, for example, simply relieve the encourager of inconvenience, for any encouragement that was given will be nearly impossible to prove after the death of the person who volunteers to be killed.
It is easy to envisage thousands of types of motivations for seeing the death of another person. One can also imagine thousands of scenarios in which this encouragement might take place.
It will probably not be in the form of a demand; it will not be angry or direct. Betrayal, as we know, is almost always done with a kiss. Suggestions to volunteer to be killed will be 'nurtured in smiles and in soft deceitful wiles', to quote the poem.
We could imagine, for example, a man going to see his mother-in-law. He has not seen her for quite a while but he drops in unexpectedly and they have a cup of tea together. He says, 'You know, Mother, you have had this problem, this diabetes, for a while now, you are a good age, you are over 60 years old and you are getting on. There is that arthritis you get every year, and life is not very good these days. Don't you think you ought to tell them that you have had enough and that you cannot take it any more? Your daughter comes to see you every week and it is taking her away from the kids. We have got our own lives to lead. We are very concerned about you, but don't you think you owe it to the kids to volunteer?'. There are many scenarios along those lines that we could imagine.
This bill rests on several false premises. One premise is that a person in severe pain is in a position to make rational, monumental decisions. In fact, a person in this condition is in precisely the kind of state which prevents them making an important decision, let alone a life-and-death decision.
The bill presumes that medical science is capable of making consistently accurate diagnoses and prognoses. It presumes a 100 per cent success rate. In recent years two high-profile cases in Australia involving euthanasia, one in New South Wales and the other in Northern Territory, demonstrated not a 100 per cent success rate but a 100 per cent failure rate in medical diagnoses and prognoses. In both cases, while alive the deceased had been medically diagnosed as dying from their illnesses. In both cases, autopsies after euthanasia deaths revealed that neither of them had terminal illnesses. It is also worth noting in this context that this bill does not require autopsies to be performed on deceased persons who died pursuant to this legislation.
Under clause 6 the sufferer may revoke a certificate of request to be killed. If the person is unable physically to do so, this revocation may be done by the sufferer's agent. But what of the sufferer who, firstly, has changed his or her mind but is unable to express his or her new
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wishes; and secondly, what of an agent who does not revoke the certificate on the sufferer's behalf? What of it? That sufferer will be killed pursuant to this bill but without his or her consent.
Passage of this bill would make it legally mandatory to officially declare falsehoods in important documents. Clause 16 requires that the cause of death of a person killed by euthanasia be recorded in the death certificate as the condition which encouraged the deceased person to volunteer, if indeed they did volunteer, to be killed. As explained by Aristotle two and a half thousand years ago, causation is a complex concept both in practice and in theory. It is not so complex, however, that the declaration of cause of death can honestly lend itself to the degree of distortion required by this bill.
The cause of death of a person who kills himself following the breakdown of a marriage is surely suicide and not divorce.
In the case of a person who is killed because the killer was angered by something about the deceased, then the cause of death is surely homicide, rather than whatever was the reason for the killer's anger. This bill legally demands that death certificates be falsified. The law should not mandate the uttering of falsehoods.
The deception associated with this bill is not restricted to falsehoods in death certificates. The language of the bill is chillingly Orwellian. Facilitating another's death by providing a poison or even pouring that poison down the throat of another person is categorised by this bill not as 'murder', 'killing' or even 'mercy killing', but repeatedly it is called 'assistance'.
Intolerable pain is referred to repeatedly but defined only as profound suffering and/or distress, whether physical, psychological or existential -- that is, intolerable to the patient.
A literal definition of intolerable pain would mean pain that cannot be tolerated -- that is, pain that kills the patient. Though logical, this cannot be what is meant. It must mean severe suffering of some kind but this is extremely subjective. There are really no satisfactory objective criteria possible by which intolerable pain can be measured: not in the bill and not in medical science.
As we in prosperous advanced societies grow weaker, the boundaries of intolerable suffering will grow ever larger. Combined with a sharply increasing acceptance of killing, if this bill is passed, the acceptable definition of 'intolerable suffering' would no doubt quickly balloon out of all present recognition. The very title of this bill is deceptive. It is called the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008. It is not about medical treatment at all. Medicine is a branch of science dealing with healing and postponing death.
This bill is about the opposite -- unnaturally shortening life. An act is not necessarily medical in nature simply because it is performed by someone wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around their neck. The so-called medical treatment that would come from this bill would be no more medical than Dr Mengele's experiments or the actions of Dr Harold Shipman, who murdered many elderly patients in Britain in order to inherit from them.
This bill pays only lip-service to the value of life. This bill aimed at ending lives prematurely claims that 'life is precious'. That this is only lip-service is seen by the fact that the bill, under clause 4, while saying that physicians should treat requests by patients to be killed with 'caution', provides no penalties at all for failure to exercise that caution. On the other hand, under clause 9, penalties are imposed on physicians who refuse to help kill patients and do not refer patients to other physicians who may agree with this request to be killed. The right of conscientious objection is thus removed from the bill.
It would make it a criminal offence in some circumstances for doctors and nurses not to participate in the process of killing another person. Pursuant to the bill there are also strong penalties for physicians who try to resuscitate patients who take poison and are dying. Resuscitating a dying person actually becomes a criminal offence in certain circumstances under this bill. That criminal offence is punishable with a fine of up to 1000 penalty units and imprisonment of up to five years.
The word 'dignity', though not dignity itself, also recurs throughout this bill. What is meant by dignity? What seems to be meant is continence and a lack of pain. Is it dignified to end life prematurely? Is there really dignity in deliberately leaving loved ones forever, before it was necessary to do so? I think not. In my opinion there is more dignity in a life lived to its natural conclusion, possibly in spite of pain and incontinence.
This bill is not supported by the Australian Medical Association. Similar proposed legislation around the world is strongly opposed by many medical associations. Many physicians in Victoria strongly oppose the provisions of this bill. Some doctors in western Victoria have privately expressed the intention to take early retirement if this bill is passed. They say if this bill is passed they would rather leave the medical profession than remain part of an occupation which has fundamentally changed in nature from attempting to heal or treat patients in any circumstances to participating in the deliberate killing of innocent people.
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Trust is surely an essential component of a doctor-patient relationship and is dependent on a patient believing that a doctor will do his or her best for the patient in all circumstances. How could this bill not damage that trust, and how could it not therefore do injury to the medical profession and the efficacy of treatment, especially for the elderly? Many elderly people in Holland now fear doctors just as many Aboriginals in the Northern Territory feared doctors and refused to seek treatment when similar legislation was active. In the case of the Dutch at least, their fears are unfortunately not without foundation. Although Holland's euthanasia laws initially had strict safeguards, with the passage of time they have been watered down. Contrary to the claims of Ms Broad, there are now cases of the medical killing of the elderly and the sick and handicapped, especially babies who do not genuinely volunteer to be killed.
The truth is that whatever safeguards are initially imposed will be eroded over time.
Ms Broad said it is up to the Parliament to make laws and the laws cannot be changed without our permission. While the letter of the law may not be changed without our permission, the practical effect of the law is changed every day without reference to Parliament. In Victoria we have laws that say that technically it is illegal to perform an abortion, for example. At the same time in Victoria we have about 30 000 abortions paid for by the commonwealth government and the taxpayer. The letter of the law and the reality of the law are two quite different things, as I think Ms Broad will understand.
Why will these safeguards be watered down over time? The reason is that once it becomes accepted in law and in principle that killing people can be 'assisting' them, then the floodgates are opened and restraints and inhibitions on the taking of imperfect lives are washed away. Expert analysis of the Oregon act, which is the model for the bill before us, has concluded that in respect of the safeguards in the Oregon act:
"The evidence strongly suggests that these safeguards are circumvented in ways that are harmful to patients".
Furthermore, an editorial in the Oregonian of 8 March 2005 said that their system of euthanasia, which this bill is based on, is 'a system that seems rigged to avoid finding' answers. In practice what will happen is that it will very quickly become clear which physicians are pro-euthanasia. There will probably be lists available on the internet -- certainly by telephone, if not on the internet -- of doctors who will promote euthanasia and who will not, I am afraid, contrary to the assertions of Ms Broad, be as devoted to finding cures for patients with difficulties as they will be to assisting them to end their lives.
Palliative care is a relatively new but rapidly developing area of medicine that holds great promise.
The passage of this bill would detract from the considerable achievements being made in the promotion of palliative care and in the standards and effectiveness of palliative care. As the Victorian division of the World Federation of Doctors who Respect Human Life claimed in a recent letter to MPs:
"Recent replacement of oral morphine with methadone improves the patient's quality of life ..."
This is being done now for people who are dying in pain; their lives are being improved. This methadone allows for the reduction in sedation and allows both a higher dose of opiate and more activity on the part of the patient. As information from Palliative Care Nurses Australia demonstrates, the standards of palliative care now possible make it feasible for the vast majority of people to experience a fulfilling and relatively pain-free death.
There is evidence that the more doctors know about palliative care, the more hostile they become to euthanasia. Even in the Netherlands over the last two or three years, the rate of euthanasia has begun to decline very slightly. This has been attributed to the increasing familiarity of many Dutch physicians with palliative care methods.
Research shows that while physical illness is often a trigger for despair, it is the depression and not the underlying illness itself which motivates most of those who are volunteering overseas for euthanasia. Crucially, to quote from an article by leading specialists in the Michigan Law Review of last month, those who request euthanasia in Oregon:
"... are [almost] always ambivalent about their desire for death".
What the authors are saying is that it depends on which day you get the patient as to whether they are volunteering for death or not; those who volunteer today may be quite unwilling tomorrow.
The end of life can be traumatic. One of our best features as human beings is to empathise with the suffering of others. Sometimes our empathy is even inflated by projecting onto the sufferer our reaction to what looks really horrible but perhaps is not actually as bad as it looks. In Victoria a person may legally refuse life-prolonging treatment and keep taking only pain relieving medication if that is their desire and their choice. This is entirely proper, because in such a
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situation the patient will be killed by his or her illness and not, as proposed by this bill, through the intervention of another person.
The passage of this bill would have a wide range of profoundly detrimental effects. It would diminish the protection offered to the lives of all people that is provided by the law and the social attitudes to which the law contributes. As explained, the bill, even as presently written, will allow people who do not genuinely volunteer, to be killed. Even beyond that, the bill's safeguards, although initially observed, would weaken over time.
There are likely to be other long-term consequences that we cannot yet envisage. We can be sure that these consequences will be pernicious, because they will emanate from initiatives which, while nobly motivated, are wrong in principle. It is wrong in principle to deal with the problems of human beings by killing them.
Friday, 1 August 2008
Media 2008-07-31 Government Questioned on Fluoride
Press Release
31st July 2008
DLP Questions Government Over Fluoride Objectors.
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, asked the government in Parliament today, what it intends to do about the more than 1,000 residents of Castlemaine, who, in June, signed and witnessed statements delivering their non-consent to treatment for dental decay. These notices included declarations that there is evidence that fluoridation may be unjurious to health.
Mr Kavanagh succeeded late last year in passing a Bill in the Upper House to prevent the government fluoridating new parts of Victoria unless it were to first receive approval from a majority of voters at a plebiscite of affected citizens.
"The government did not allow that Bill to even be debated in the Legislative Assembly. Passage in the Assembly is required for any Bill to become law." Mr Kavanagh said.
"Unfortunately the relevant Minister is in the Assembly so it will take some time for a reply, which I do not expect to be satisfactory" Mr Kavanagh said.
For further comment, please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
31st July 2008
DLP Questions Government Over Fluoride Objectors.
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, asked the government in Parliament today, what it intends to do about the more than 1,000 residents of Castlemaine, who, in June, signed and witnessed statements delivering their non-consent to treatment for dental decay. These notices included declarations that there is evidence that fluoridation may be unjurious to health.
Mr Kavanagh succeeded late last year in passing a Bill in the Upper House to prevent the government fluoridating new parts of Victoria unless it were to first receive approval from a majority of voters at a plebiscite of affected citizens.
"The government did not allow that Bill to even be debated in the Legislative Assembly. Passage in the Assembly is required for any Bill to become law." Mr Kavanagh said.
"Unfortunately the relevant Minister is in the Assembly so it will take some time for a reply, which I do not expect to be satisfactory" Mr Kavanagh said.
For further comment, please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
Media 2008-07-31 DLP leads Anti-Euthanasia Charge
Press Release
31st July 2008
DLP leads Anti-Euthanasia Charge.
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, last night led a charge against the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 with a major speech in the Legislative Council.
"A mood against the Bill certainly seemed to develop during the course of the debate. I am now CONFIDENT that the Bill will not be passed" Mr Kavanagh said.
For further comment, please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
The full text of Mr Kavanagh's speech against the Bill is attached below:
VICHANSARD
Whole Speech
Member Selected - KAVANAGH
Title: MEDICAL TREATMENT (PHYSICIAN ASSISTED DYING) BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 30 July 2008
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...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- As was pointed out by Ms Broad, we human beings possess a questionable gift -- the gift of knowing that we are all mortal, that there is no getting out of our earthly existence alive. Anxiety over the inevitability of death is accentuated by the heartbreaking experiences that probably all of us have had in witnessing people we love suffering in the course of dying, sometimes over protracted periods. The bill before us is motivated by compassion engendered by such experiences. It is entirely appropriate that we be motivated by compassion, but it is also obligatory for us to use our intellect, our reasoning and our understanding of human nature gained from ourselves and our fellows. The application of these tools and insights to the challenge of painful death makes it clear that any conceivable good that could come from the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be greatly outweighed by its harmful consequences.
I observe that, contrary to assumptions and assertions by some proponents and opponents of this bill, it is not actually about suicide. The bill is not about people killing themselves, but its legal parts relate to providing and/or administering the means of ending another person's life. Contributing to the death of another person, even one who apparently volunteers, of course raises issues and legal principles quite different from those involved in the consideration of a suicide. Not only our legal system but also our very civilisation have long been predicated on the premise that innocent human life is of such value that it may be taken permissibly only in the individual or collective defence of life itself. This principle, the heart and soul of our legal system, protects us all. Damaging, denying or compromising that principle reduces the protection provided by our legal system and the dominant social attitudes to which our laws contribute.
The principle of the value of innocent human life demands that lives be respected even by barons and kings. This principle was not established quickly or easily. It took centuries of inculcating what were initially revolutionary concepts about the nature and importance of the individual. However, the fact that this process took a long time and struggle to establish does not mean that its undoing would require a correspondingly long period or that the process would be necessarily as tortuous. An unfortunate fact of life is that destruction is much simpler, quicker, easier and cheaper than construction. The greatest building in the world that took centuries or generations of hard work, genius, material and wealth might be destroyed by a single individual with a few seconds of concentration and a match. Despite the best intentions of many of its proponents, the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be a spark conflagrating the most important principle that is the basis of our legal system and civilisation.
Passage of this bill would establish at least two new principles. First, the lives of certain categories of people will not be protected by the legal system. Second, that killing certain people is rendering assistance to them. Actions that are inherently wrong have regrettable reactions only some of which are foreseeable. The consequences of the passage of this bill that we can foresee include generally diminishing the value of human life not only by the state but also by individuals.
The inculcation of the principle that life is of inestimable value has contributed to a sense of awe over the taking of another's life. That awe, and the inhibition and reluctance at the taking of another life, would be diminished if the bill is passed, because the law not only expresses our culture but also helps to inform and shape it. If this bill is passed then the restraint the law has traditionally contributed to imposing on people in situations where there is
Page 2803
temptation to take another person's life would be weakened.
This process would not be conscious, deliberate or even considered. It would be automatic but influenced by the devaluation of human life which this bill entails. For example, a home burglar who is confronted by an elderly resident would know, if this bill is passed, that there are innocent people, especially elderly people, who the law allows to be killed. The home invader might even reason, taking his cue from the law, that causing a quick death might even be doing that bothersome old person a favour. Passage of this bill would weaken the inhibitions felt at the taking of human life in every situation of conflict or anger -- whether, for example, it is two people fighting in a bar or a driver engulfed by road rage. If the bill diminishes respect for the lives of others, as it would, what would be its effects on attitudes towards assaulting or otherwise harming others short of death, let alone by stealing or damaging their property?
Even more profound and disturbing than the effect on how individuals assess the value of the lives of others would be the effect that the passage of this bill had on how people see themselves. The elderly and sick already fear being a burden on their loved ones and on the community at large. Would not the knowledge that some elderly and sick are volunteering to be killed cause some of the elderly and sick to view continuing to live -- that is, failing to volunteer to be killed -- as an act of selfishness? Indeed, as pointed out by Palliative Care Nurses Australia in Commentary on the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008, famous proponents of euthanasia in Australia have implicitly implied or argued that it would be altruistic for those who feel that their lives are a burden to seek assistance to die.
In addition to the implicit pressure that passage of this bill would put on the vulnerable themselves, there would be explicit pressure from other people.
The bill purports to safeguard the elderly against pressure from relatives and friends by prohibiting those involved in a death from inheriting from the deceased. This safeguard is naive and would be almost totally ineffective. First, the person encouraging the sick person to volunteer to be killed need not be an agent under the bill. Second, the encourager may not need a will at all to inherit property. Third, the benefits to the encourager may not be of a financial or material nature at all. There are many other benefits that could come from a person apart from money or property. The death of the sufferer might, for example, simply relieve the encourager of inconvenience, for any encouragement that was given will be nearly impossible to prove after the death of the person who volunteers to be killed.
It is easy to envisage thousands of types of motivations for seeing the death of another person. One can also imagine thousands of scenarios in which this encouragement might take place.
It will probably not be in the form of a demand; it will not be angry or direct. Betrayal, as we know, is almost always done with a kiss. Suggestions to volunteer to be killed will be 'nurtured in smiles and in soft deceitful wiles', to quote the poem.
We could imagine, for example, a man going to see his mother-in-law. He has not seen her for quite a while but he drops in unexpectedly and they have a cup of tea together. He says, 'You know, Mother, you have had this problem, this diabetes, for a while now, you are a good age, you are over 60 years old and you are getting on. There is that arthritis you get every year, and life is not very good these days. Don't you think you ought to tell them that you have had enough and that you cannot take it any more? Your daughter comes to see you every week and it is taking her away from the kids. We have got our own lives to lead. We are very concerned about you, but don't you think you owe it to the kids to volunteer?'. There are many scenarios along those lines that we could imagine.
This bill rests on several false premises. One premise is that a person in severe pain is in a position to make rational, monumental decisions. In fact, a person in this condition is in precisely the kind of state which prevents them making an important decision, let alone a life-and-death decision.
The bill presumes that medical science is capable of making consistently accurate diagnoses and prognoses. It presumes a 100 per cent success rate. In recent years two high-profile cases in Australia involving euthanasia, one in New South Wales and the other in Northern Territory, demonstrated not a 100 per cent success rate but a 100 per cent failure rate in medical diagnoses and prognoses. In both cases, while alive the deceased had been medically diagnosed as dying from their illnesses. In both cases, autopsies after euthanasia deaths revealed that neither of them had terminal illnesses. It is also worth noting in this context that this bill does not require autopsies to be performed on deceased persons who died pursuant to this legislation.
Under clause 6 the sufferer may revoke a certificate of request to be killed. If the person is unable physically to do so, this revocation may be done by the sufferer's agent. But what of the sufferer who, firstly, has changed his or her mind but is unable to express his or her new
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wishes; and secondly, what of an agent who does not revoke the certificate on the sufferer's behalf? What of it? That sufferer will be killed pursuant to this bill but without his or her consent.
Passage of this bill would make it legally mandatory to officially declare falsehoods in important documents. Clause 16 requires that the cause of death of a person killed by euthanasia be recorded in the death certificate as the condition which encouraged the deceased person to volunteer, if indeed they did volunteer, to be killed. As explained by Aristotle two and a half thousand years ago, causation is a complex concept both in practice and in theory. It is not so complex, however, that the declaration of cause of death can honestly lend itself to the degree of distortion required by this bill.
The cause of death of a person who kills himself following the breakdown of a marriage is surely suicide and not divorce.
In the case of a person who is killed because the killer was angered by something about the deceased, then the cause of death is surely homicide, rather than whatever was the reason for the killer's anger. This bill legally demands that death certificates be falsified. The law should not mandate the uttering of falsehoods.
The deception associated with this bill is not restricted to falsehoods in death certificates. The language of the bill is chillingly Orwellian. Facilitating another's death by providing a poison or even pouring that poison down the throat of another person is categorised by this bill not as 'murder', 'killing' or even 'mercy killing', but repeatedly it is called 'assistance'.
Intolerable pain is referred to repeatedly but defined only as profound suffering and/or distress, whether physical, psychological or existential -- that is, intolerable to the patient.
A literal definition of intolerable pain would mean pain that cannot be tolerated -- that is, pain that kills the patient. Though logical, this cannot be what is meant. It must mean severe suffering of some kind but this is extremely subjective. There are really no satisfactory objective criteria possible by which intolerable pain can be measured: not in the bill and not in medical science.
As we in prosperous advanced societies grow weaker, the boundaries of intolerable suffering will grow ever larger. Combined with a sharply increasing acceptance of killing, if this bill is passed, the acceptable definition of 'intolerable suffering' would no doubt quickly balloon out of all present recognition. The very title of this bill is deceptive. It is called the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008. It is not about medical treatment at all. Medicine is a branch of science dealing with healing and postponing death.
This bill is about the opposite -- unnaturally shortening life. An act is not necessarily medical in nature simply because it is performed by someone wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around their neck. The so-called medical treatment that would come from this bill would be no more medical than Dr Mengele's experiments or the actions of Dr Harold Shipman, who murdered many elderly patients in Britain in order to inherit from them.
This bill pays only lip-service to the value of life. This bill aimed at ending lives prematurely claims that 'life is precious'. That this is only lip-service is seen by the fact that the bill, under clause 4, while saying that physicians should treat requests by patients to be killed with 'caution', provides no penalties at all for failure to exercise that caution. On the other hand, under clause 9, penalties are imposed on physicians who refuse to help kill patients and do not refer patients to other physicians who may agree with this request to be killed. The right of conscientious objection is thus removed from the bill.
It would make it a criminal offence in some circumstances for doctors and nurses not to participate in the process of killing another person. Pursuant to the bill there are also strong penalties for physicians who try to resuscitate patients who take poison and are dying. Resuscitating a dying person actually becomes a criminal offence in certain circumstances under this bill. That criminal offence is punishable with a fine of up to 1000 penalty units and imprisonment of up to five years.
The word 'dignity', though not dignity itself, also recurs throughout this bill. What is meant by dignity? What seems to be meant is continence and a lack of pain. Is it dignified to end life prematurely? Is there really dignity in deliberately leaving loved ones forever, before it was necessary to do so? I think not. In my opinion there is more dignity in a life lived to its natural conclusion, possibly in spite of pain and incontinence.
This bill is not supported by the Australian Medical Association. Similar proposed legislation around the world is strongly opposed by many medical associations. Many physicians in Victoria strongly oppose the provisions of this bill. Some doctors in western Victoria have privately expressed the intention to take early retirement if this bill is passed. They say if this bill is passed they would rather leave the medical profession than remain part of an occupation which has fundamentally changed in nature from attempting to heal or treat patients in any circumstances to participating in the deliberate killing of innocent people.
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Trust is surely an essential component of a doctor-patient relationship and is dependent on a patient believing that a doctor will do his or her best for the patient in all circumstances. How could this bill not damage that trust, and how could it not therefore do injury to the medical profession and the efficacy of treatment, especially for the elderly? Many elderly people in Holland now fear doctors just as many Aboriginals in the Northern Territory feared doctors and refused to seek treatment when similar legislation was active. In the case of the Dutch at least, their fears are unfortunately not without foundation. Although Holland's euthanasia laws initially had strict safeguards, with the passage of time they have been watered down. Contrary to the claims of Ms Broad, there are now cases of the medical killing of the elderly and the sick and handicapped, especially babies who do not genuinely volunteer to be killed.
The truth is that whatever safeguards are initially imposed will be eroded over time.
Ms Broad said it is up to the Parliament to make laws and the laws cannot be changed without our permission. While the letter of the law may not be changed without our permission, the practical effect of the law is changed every day without reference to Parliament. In Victoria we have laws that say that technically it is illegal to perform an abortion, for example. At the same time in Victoria we have about 30 000 abortions paid for by the commonwealth government and the taxpayer. The letter of the law and the reality of the law are two quite different things, as I think Ms Broad will understand.
Why will these safeguards be watered down over time? The reason is that once it becomes accepted in law and in principle that killing people can be 'assisting' them, then the floodgates are opened and restraints and inhibitions on the taking of imperfect lives are washed away. Expert analysis of the Oregon act, which is the model for the bill before us, has concluded that in respect of the safeguards in the Oregon act:
The evidence strongly suggests that these safeguards are circumvented in ways that are harmful to patients.
Furthermore, an editorial in the Oregonian of 8 March 2005 said that their system of euthanasia, which this bill is based on, is 'a system that seems rigged to avoid finding' answers. In practice what will happen is that it will very quickly become clear which physicians are pro-euthanasia. There will probably be lists available on the internet -- certainly by telephone, if not on the internet -- of doctors who will promote euthanasia and who will not, I am afraid, contrary to the assertions of Ms Broad, be as devoted to finding cures for patients with difficulties as they will be to assisting them to end their lives.
Palliative care is a relatively new but rapidly developing area of medicine that holds great promise.
The passage of this bill would detract from the considerable achievements being made in the promotion of palliative care and in the standards and effectiveness of palliative care. As the Victorian division of the World Federation of Doctors who Respect Human Life claimed in a recent letter to MPs:
Recent replacement of oral morphine with methadone improves the patient's quality of life ...
This is being done now for people who are dying in pain; their lives are being improved. This methadone allows for the reduction in sedation and allows both a higher dose of opiate and more activity on the part of the patient. As information from Palliative Care Nurses Australia demonstrates, the standards of palliative care now possible make it feasible for the vast majority of people to experience a fulfilling and relatively pain-free death.
There is evidence that the more doctors know about palliative care, the more hostile they become to euthanasia. Even in the Netherlands over the last two or three years, the rate of euthanasia has begun to decline very slightly. This has been attributed to the increasing familiarity of many Dutch physicians with palliative care methods.
Research shows that while physical illness is often a trigger for despair, it is the depression and not the underlying illness itself which motivates most of those who are volunteering overseas for euthanasia. Crucially, to quote from an article by leading specialists in the Michigan Law Review of last month, those who request euthanasia in Oregon:
... are [almost] always ambivalent about their desire for death.
What the authors are saying is that it depends on which day you get the patient as to whether they are volunteering for death or not; those who volunteer today may be quite unwilling tomorrow.
The end of life can be traumatic. One of our best features as human beings is to empathise with the suffering of others. Sometimes our empathy is even inflated by projecting onto the sufferer our reaction to what looks really horrible but perhaps is not actually as bad as it looks. In Victoria a person may legally refuse life-prolonging treatment and keep taking only pain relieving medication if that is their desire and their choice. This is entirely proper, because in such a
Page 2806
situation the patient will be killed by his or her illness and not, as proposed by this bill, through the intervention of another person.
The passage of this bill would have a wide range of profoundly detrimental effects. It would diminish the protection offered to the lives of all people that is provided by the law and the social attitudes to which the law contributes. As explained, the bill, even as presently written, will allow people who do not genuinely volunteer, to be killed. Even beyond that, the bill's safeguards, although initially observed, would weaken over time.
There are likely to be other long-term consequences that we cannot yet envisage. We can be sure that these consequences will be pernicious, because they will emanate from initiatives which, while nobly motivated, are wrong in principle. It is wrong in principle to deal with the problems of human beings by killing them.
31st July 2008
DLP leads Anti-Euthanasia Charge.
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC for Western Victoria, last night led a charge against the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 with a major speech in the Legislative Council.
"A mood against the Bill certainly seemed to develop during the course of the debate. I am now CONFIDENT that the Bill will not be passed" Mr Kavanagh said.
For further comment, please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
The full text of Mr Kavanagh's speech against the Bill is attached below:
VICHANSARD
Whole Speech
Member Selected - KAVANAGH
Title: MEDICAL TREATMENT (PHYSICIAN ASSISTED DYING) BILL
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Second Reading
Members: KAVANAGH
Date: 30 July 2008
Page 2802
...
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- As was pointed out by Ms Broad, we human beings possess a questionable gift -- the gift of knowing that we are all mortal, that there is no getting out of our earthly existence alive. Anxiety over the inevitability of death is accentuated by the heartbreaking experiences that probably all of us have had in witnessing people we love suffering in the course of dying, sometimes over protracted periods. The bill before us is motivated by compassion engendered by such experiences. It is entirely appropriate that we be motivated by compassion, but it is also obligatory for us to use our intellect, our reasoning and our understanding of human nature gained from ourselves and our fellows. The application of these tools and insights to the challenge of painful death makes it clear that any conceivable good that could come from the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be greatly outweighed by its harmful consequences.
I observe that, contrary to assumptions and assertions by some proponents and opponents of this bill, it is not actually about suicide. The bill is not about people killing themselves, but its legal parts relate to providing and/or administering the means of ending another person's life. Contributing to the death of another person, even one who apparently volunteers, of course raises issues and legal principles quite different from those involved in the consideration of a suicide. Not only our legal system but also our very civilisation have long been predicated on the premise that innocent human life is of such value that it may be taken permissibly only in the individual or collective defence of life itself. This principle, the heart and soul of our legal system, protects us all. Damaging, denying or compromising that principle reduces the protection provided by our legal system and the dominant social attitudes to which our laws contribute.
The principle of the value of innocent human life demands that lives be respected even by barons and kings. This principle was not established quickly or easily. It took centuries of inculcating what were initially revolutionary concepts about the nature and importance of the individual. However, the fact that this process took a long time and struggle to establish does not mean that its undoing would require a correspondingly long period or that the process would be necessarily as tortuous. An unfortunate fact of life is that destruction is much simpler, quicker, easier and cheaper than construction. The greatest building in the world that took centuries or generations of hard work, genius, material and wealth might be destroyed by a single individual with a few seconds of concentration and a match. Despite the best intentions of many of its proponents, the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008 would be a spark conflagrating the most important principle that is the basis of our legal system and civilisation.
Passage of this bill would establish at least two new principles. First, the lives of certain categories of people will not be protected by the legal system. Second, that killing certain people is rendering assistance to them. Actions that are inherently wrong have regrettable reactions only some of which are foreseeable. The consequences of the passage of this bill that we can foresee include generally diminishing the value of human life not only by the state but also by individuals.
The inculcation of the principle that life is of inestimable value has contributed to a sense of awe over the taking of another's life. That awe, and the inhibition and reluctance at the taking of another life, would be diminished if the bill is passed, because the law not only expresses our culture but also helps to inform and shape it. If this bill is passed then the restraint the law has traditionally contributed to imposing on people in situations where there is
Page 2803
temptation to take another person's life would be weakened.
This process would not be conscious, deliberate or even considered. It would be automatic but influenced by the devaluation of human life which this bill entails. For example, a home burglar who is confronted by an elderly resident would know, if this bill is passed, that there are innocent people, especially elderly people, who the law allows to be killed. The home invader might even reason, taking his cue from the law, that causing a quick death might even be doing that bothersome old person a favour. Passage of this bill would weaken the inhibitions felt at the taking of human life in every situation of conflict or anger -- whether, for example, it is two people fighting in a bar or a driver engulfed by road rage. If the bill diminishes respect for the lives of others, as it would, what would be its effects on attitudes towards assaulting or otherwise harming others short of death, let alone by stealing or damaging their property?
Even more profound and disturbing than the effect on how individuals assess the value of the lives of others would be the effect that the passage of this bill had on how people see themselves. The elderly and sick already fear being a burden on their loved ones and on the community at large. Would not the knowledge that some elderly and sick are volunteering to be killed cause some of the elderly and sick to view continuing to live -- that is, failing to volunteer to be killed -- as an act of selfishness? Indeed, as pointed out by Palliative Care Nurses Australia in Commentary on the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008, famous proponents of euthanasia in Australia have implicitly implied or argued that it would be altruistic for those who feel that their lives are a burden to seek assistance to die.
In addition to the implicit pressure that passage of this bill would put on the vulnerable themselves, there would be explicit pressure from other people.
The bill purports to safeguard the elderly against pressure from relatives and friends by prohibiting those involved in a death from inheriting from the deceased. This safeguard is naive and would be almost totally ineffective. First, the person encouraging the sick person to volunteer to be killed need not be an agent under the bill. Second, the encourager may not need a will at all to inherit property. Third, the benefits to the encourager may not be of a financial or material nature at all. There are many other benefits that could come from a person apart from money or property. The death of the sufferer might, for example, simply relieve the encourager of inconvenience, for any encouragement that was given will be nearly impossible to prove after the death of the person who volunteers to be killed.
It is easy to envisage thousands of types of motivations for seeing the death of another person. One can also imagine thousands of scenarios in which this encouragement might take place.
It will probably not be in the form of a demand; it will not be angry or direct. Betrayal, as we know, is almost always done with a kiss. Suggestions to volunteer to be killed will be 'nurtured in smiles and in soft deceitful wiles', to quote the poem.
We could imagine, for example, a man going to see his mother-in-law. He has not seen her for quite a while but he drops in unexpectedly and they have a cup of tea together. He says, 'You know, Mother, you have had this problem, this diabetes, for a while now, you are a good age, you are over 60 years old and you are getting on. There is that arthritis you get every year, and life is not very good these days. Don't you think you ought to tell them that you have had enough and that you cannot take it any more? Your daughter comes to see you every week and it is taking her away from the kids. We have got our own lives to lead. We are very concerned about you, but don't you think you owe it to the kids to volunteer?'. There are many scenarios along those lines that we could imagine.
This bill rests on several false premises. One premise is that a person in severe pain is in a position to make rational, monumental decisions. In fact, a person in this condition is in precisely the kind of state which prevents them making an important decision, let alone a life-and-death decision.
The bill presumes that medical science is capable of making consistently accurate diagnoses and prognoses. It presumes a 100 per cent success rate. In recent years two high-profile cases in Australia involving euthanasia, one in New South Wales and the other in Northern Territory, demonstrated not a 100 per cent success rate but a 100 per cent failure rate in medical diagnoses and prognoses. In both cases, while alive the deceased had been medically diagnosed as dying from their illnesses. In both cases, autopsies after euthanasia deaths revealed that neither of them had terminal illnesses. It is also worth noting in this context that this bill does not require autopsies to be performed on deceased persons who died pursuant to this legislation.
Under clause 6 the sufferer may revoke a certificate of request to be killed. If the person is unable physically to do so, this revocation may be done by the sufferer's agent. But what of the sufferer who, firstly, has changed his or her mind but is unable to express his or her new
Page 2804
wishes; and secondly, what of an agent who does not revoke the certificate on the sufferer's behalf? What of it? That sufferer will be killed pursuant to this bill but without his or her consent.
Passage of this bill would make it legally mandatory to officially declare falsehoods in important documents. Clause 16 requires that the cause of death of a person killed by euthanasia be recorded in the death certificate as the condition which encouraged the deceased person to volunteer, if indeed they did volunteer, to be killed. As explained by Aristotle two and a half thousand years ago, causation is a complex concept both in practice and in theory. It is not so complex, however, that the declaration of cause of death can honestly lend itself to the degree of distortion required by this bill.
The cause of death of a person who kills himself following the breakdown of a marriage is surely suicide and not divorce.
In the case of a person who is killed because the killer was angered by something about the deceased, then the cause of death is surely homicide, rather than whatever was the reason for the killer's anger. This bill legally demands that death certificates be falsified. The law should not mandate the uttering of falsehoods.
The deception associated with this bill is not restricted to falsehoods in death certificates. The language of the bill is chillingly Orwellian. Facilitating another's death by providing a poison or even pouring that poison down the throat of another person is categorised by this bill not as 'murder', 'killing' or even 'mercy killing', but repeatedly it is called 'assistance'.
Intolerable pain is referred to repeatedly but defined only as profound suffering and/or distress, whether physical, psychological or existential -- that is, intolerable to the patient.
A literal definition of intolerable pain would mean pain that cannot be tolerated -- that is, pain that kills the patient. Though logical, this cannot be what is meant. It must mean severe suffering of some kind but this is extremely subjective. There are really no satisfactory objective criteria possible by which intolerable pain can be measured: not in the bill and not in medical science.
As we in prosperous advanced societies grow weaker, the boundaries of intolerable suffering will grow ever larger. Combined with a sharply increasing acceptance of killing, if this bill is passed, the acceptable definition of 'intolerable suffering' would no doubt quickly balloon out of all present recognition. The very title of this bill is deceptive. It is called the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill 2008. It is not about medical treatment at all. Medicine is a branch of science dealing with healing and postponing death.
This bill is about the opposite -- unnaturally shortening life. An act is not necessarily medical in nature simply because it is performed by someone wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around their neck. The so-called medical treatment that would come from this bill would be no more medical than Dr Mengele's experiments or the actions of Dr Harold Shipman, who murdered many elderly patients in Britain in order to inherit from them.
This bill pays only lip-service to the value of life. This bill aimed at ending lives prematurely claims that 'life is precious'. That this is only lip-service is seen by the fact that the bill, under clause 4, while saying that physicians should treat requests by patients to be killed with 'caution', provides no penalties at all for failure to exercise that caution. On the other hand, under clause 9, penalties are imposed on physicians who refuse to help kill patients and do not refer patients to other physicians who may agree with this request to be killed. The right of conscientious objection is thus removed from the bill.
It would make it a criminal offence in some circumstances for doctors and nurses not to participate in the process of killing another person. Pursuant to the bill there are also strong penalties for physicians who try to resuscitate patients who take poison and are dying. Resuscitating a dying person actually becomes a criminal offence in certain circumstances under this bill. That criminal offence is punishable with a fine of up to 1000 penalty units and imprisonment of up to five years.
The word 'dignity', though not dignity itself, also recurs throughout this bill. What is meant by dignity? What seems to be meant is continence and a lack of pain. Is it dignified to end life prematurely? Is there really dignity in deliberately leaving loved ones forever, before it was necessary to do so? I think not. In my opinion there is more dignity in a life lived to its natural conclusion, possibly in spite of pain and incontinence.
This bill is not supported by the Australian Medical Association. Similar proposed legislation around the world is strongly opposed by many medical associations. Many physicians in Victoria strongly oppose the provisions of this bill. Some doctors in western Victoria have privately expressed the intention to take early retirement if this bill is passed. They say if this bill is passed they would rather leave the medical profession than remain part of an occupation which has fundamentally changed in nature from attempting to heal or treat patients in any circumstances to participating in the deliberate killing of innocent people.
Page 2805
Trust is surely an essential component of a doctor-patient relationship and is dependent on a patient believing that a doctor will do his or her best for the patient in all circumstances. How could this bill not damage that trust, and how could it not therefore do injury to the medical profession and the efficacy of treatment, especially for the elderly? Many elderly people in Holland now fear doctors just as many Aboriginals in the Northern Territory feared doctors and refused to seek treatment when similar legislation was active. In the case of the Dutch at least, their fears are unfortunately not without foundation. Although Holland's euthanasia laws initially had strict safeguards, with the passage of time they have been watered down. Contrary to the claims of Ms Broad, there are now cases of the medical killing of the elderly and the sick and handicapped, especially babies who do not genuinely volunteer to be killed.
The truth is that whatever safeguards are initially imposed will be eroded over time.
Ms Broad said it is up to the Parliament to make laws and the laws cannot be changed without our permission. While the letter of the law may not be changed without our permission, the practical effect of the law is changed every day without reference to Parliament. In Victoria we have laws that say that technically it is illegal to perform an abortion, for example. At the same time in Victoria we have about 30 000 abortions paid for by the commonwealth government and the taxpayer. The letter of the law and the reality of the law are two quite different things, as I think Ms Broad will understand.
Why will these safeguards be watered down over time? The reason is that once it becomes accepted in law and in principle that killing people can be 'assisting' them, then the floodgates are opened and restraints and inhibitions on the taking of imperfect lives are washed away. Expert analysis of the Oregon act, which is the model for the bill before us, has concluded that in respect of the safeguards in the Oregon act:
The evidence strongly suggests that these safeguards are circumvented in ways that are harmful to patients.
Furthermore, an editorial in the Oregonian of 8 March 2005 said that their system of euthanasia, which this bill is based on, is 'a system that seems rigged to avoid finding' answers. In practice what will happen is that it will very quickly become clear which physicians are pro-euthanasia. There will probably be lists available on the internet -- certainly by telephone, if not on the internet -- of doctors who will promote euthanasia and who will not, I am afraid, contrary to the assertions of Ms Broad, be as devoted to finding cures for patients with difficulties as they will be to assisting them to end their lives.
Palliative care is a relatively new but rapidly developing area of medicine that holds great promise.
The passage of this bill would detract from the considerable achievements being made in the promotion of palliative care and in the standards and effectiveness of palliative care. As the Victorian division of the World Federation of Doctors who Respect Human Life claimed in a recent letter to MPs:
Recent replacement of oral morphine with methadone improves the patient's quality of life ...
This is being done now for people who are dying in pain; their lives are being improved. This methadone allows for the reduction in sedation and allows both a higher dose of opiate and more activity on the part of the patient. As information from Palliative Care Nurses Australia demonstrates, the standards of palliative care now possible make it feasible for the vast majority of people to experience a fulfilling and relatively pain-free death.
There is evidence that the more doctors know about palliative care, the more hostile they become to euthanasia. Even in the Netherlands over the last two or three years, the rate of euthanasia has begun to decline very slightly. This has been attributed to the increasing familiarity of many Dutch physicians with palliative care methods.
Research shows that while physical illness is often a trigger for despair, it is the depression and not the underlying illness itself which motivates most of those who are volunteering overseas for euthanasia. Crucially, to quote from an article by leading specialists in the Michigan Law Review of last month, those who request euthanasia in Oregon:
... are [almost] always ambivalent about their desire for death.
What the authors are saying is that it depends on which day you get the patient as to whether they are volunteering for death or not; those who volunteer today may be quite unwilling tomorrow.
The end of life can be traumatic. One of our best features as human beings is to empathise with the suffering of others. Sometimes our empathy is even inflated by projecting onto the sufferer our reaction to what looks really horrible but perhaps is not actually as bad as it looks. In Victoria a person may legally refuse life-prolonging treatment and keep taking only pain relieving medication if that is their desire and their choice. This is entirely proper, because in such a
Page 2806
situation the patient will be killed by his or her illness and not, as proposed by this bill, through the intervention of another person.
The passage of this bill would have a wide range of profoundly detrimental effects. It would diminish the protection offered to the lives of all people that is provided by the law and the social attitudes to which the law contributes. As explained, the bill, even as presently written, will allow people who do not genuinely volunteer, to be killed. Even beyond that, the bill's safeguards, although initially observed, would weaken over time.
There are likely to be other long-term consequences that we cannot yet envisage. We can be sure that these consequences will be pernicious, because they will emanate from initiatives which, while nobly motivated, are wrong in principle. It is wrong in principle to deal with the problems of human beings by killing them.
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