Suicide deaths have increased in Victoria Australia since assisted death was legalized

This speech was given in the Victoria Australia Parliament on June 21, 2023.

Hon. Damien Tudehope

The Hon. DAMIEN TUDEHOPE (21:31): It is four years ago tomorrow that euthanasia became legal in Victoria. It was claimed during the parliamentary debate that this would prevent 50 suicides each year. Not only has there been no such decline, but there were 62 more suicides in Victoria in 2022 than in 2017, when this claim was made. The suicide rate among those aged over 65 years increased in Victoria between 2019 and 2022 by 42 per cent—five times the increase in New South Wales. It is over a year since this House voted 23‑15 to create an exemption to the laws on murder, and on aiding and counselling suicide, to allow the supply and administration of a lethal substance to a person for the purpose of causing his or her death.

The misnamed Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2022 will come into effect on 28 November 2023. NSW Health is busily preparing for this State-sanctioned killing by setting up pharmacy services to supply the deadly drugs and a "care navigator service" to connect people with medical practitioners willing to end their lives. Expressions of interest for the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board have closed and appointments are expected to be made shortly. The members of this board are being given the ultimate power over the lives of vulnerable people. Under the Act, only the board can issue a voluntary assisted dying substance authority—a VADSA—the legal authorisation for a specified medical practitioner to terminate the life of a named person with a specific lethal substance. Who can want this power over the lives of others so much as to seek appointment to this death board? We will see.

It is clear from the Victorian data that State-approved suicide for some evidently leads to more suicide overall. As the first State to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide, Victoria included some restrictions to win over the final votes needed for the legislation to pass, including a default practice of self-administration, with practitioner administration permitted only when self-administration was not possible. There was also a complete prohibition on medical practitioners suggesting voluntary assisted dying before a patient initiated a request for information on it. Western Australia abandoned those restrictions, with predictable results: In the first year, 190 people had their lives ended—147 by administration of a lethal poison by a medical practitioner and 43 by self-administration of a lethal poison. Those deaths accounted for 1.14 per cent of all deaths in Western Australia, nearly double the rate of 0.58 per cent in Victoria in its third full year of legalisation.

If the same impact is seen in New South Wales, around 2,175 deaths can be anticipated under the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act in its first year of operation. Rather than offering death by lethal substance to vulnerable people, we should be saying, "We respect you, we value you, we love you and we will wrap around you all those services that see out your dying days in a proper and dignified manner."