Arabic version: أرملة تصف قوانين المساعدة الطوعية على الموت في الإقليم الشمالي بأنها «ضعيفة جداً»

According to ABC News, Northern Territory voluntary assisted dying advocate Carolyn Marriott has described the Territory’s newly passed legislation as “very weak” after parliament rejected proposed amendments to key eligibility and communication rules.

The NT parliament passed the Rights of the Terminally Ill bill on Thursday. It will legalise voluntary assisted dying in the Territory in 18 months. The law requires a patient to have a prognosis of 12 months or less to live, and prevents health professionals from initiating conversations about VAD, a provision known as a gag clause.

Marriott said the restrictions would leave out people such as her late partner, John Bhana, who died in 2015 aged 65 after corticobasal degeneration, a rare neurodegenerative disease affecting movement and speech. She said uncertainty around the disease’s progression meant he would not have met the 12-month prognosis requirement.

She said Bhana’s condition deteriorated after years without a diagnosis and that he eventually required aged care. Marriott recalled placing a help-call button in his hand each evening, only for him later to lose the ability to press it. Bhana had told her in 2014 that he wanted access to VAD, she said, but knew it was illegal in the NT.

Similar six- to 12-month prognosis restrictions operate in every other Australian jurisdiction except the ACT. Outside the NT, Victoria is the only other jurisdiction with a gag clause, but it has overturned the condition, with the change due to take effect in April 2027. Marriott said people should be able to obtain information freely and make their own choices at the end of life.