Unfortunately, that link does not work from my post. Although this document has no heading, please check out submission 386 at:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2008-10/terminally_ill/submissions/sublist

The Bill is unlikely to pass in the lower house, and even if it did, so what? We are talking about VOLUNTARY euthanasia here, not killing people willy nilly.

//However, this comes out of Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm's libertarian world view: "People should be free to make their own choices and accept responsibility for the consequences, so long as nobody else is harmed".//

That's not a libertarian world view, that is classic liberal philosophy. The philosophy of such notaries as Locke, Mill, Jefferson and Menzies.

Just because the Liberal Democrats are nuts, it doesn't discredit the long and proud tradition of liberalism any more than despots affixing 'Democratic' in front of a countries name discredits democracy.

But I'm guessing you're more of Burke & Hobbes guy than a fan of Mill.

//Australia has 3 territories: NT, ACT, and Norfolk Island.//

No, Australia 10 Territories (not all inhabited). On the mainland are the 3 'internal Territories': NT, ACT and JBT (Jervis Bay Territory). JBT is administered as if it were part of the ACT, but it's technically a separate Territory. The 7 external Territories are Ashmore & Cartier Islands, Heard & McDonald Islands, Coral Sea Islands (all uninhabited); Australian Antarctic Territory, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island.

//There are good reasons to reject voluntary, active euthanasia through the repeal of the Territories' legislation.//

There may well be good arguments against euthanasia, but I think you're rather missing the point. The point is whether or not the Territories should be free to make their own laws in the same way that the States can. The ACT and NT are both referred to as 'self-governing Territories', but there have been numerous cases where the Federal government has overruled legislation introduced by the democratically elected governments of these so-called 'self-governing Territories'.

Is it OK for the Federal Government to only pay lip-service to the idea of self-governing Territories, whilst in practice denying them self-governance? That's the crux of the issue.

ttbn,

<<The Bill is unlikely to pass in the lower house, and even if it did, so what? We are talking about VOLUNTARY euthanasia here, not killing people willy nilly.>>

Don't you understand the seriousness to families and societies when a nation legalises voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide? I'll let retired anaesthetist and palliative care physician at Concord Hospital, Sydney, Dr. Brian Pollard speak. He wrote 'Why voluntary safe euthanasia is a myth' (Quadrant, 1 January 2011 online: https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2011/01-02/why-safe-voluntary-euthanasia-is-a-myth/).

Dr. John Keown, Director of the Centre for Health Care Law, in the Faculty of Law in the University of Leicester, U.K., completed a research project on euthanasia in Holland. He concludes:

<<"It appears that the overwhelming majority of cases are falsely certified as death by natural causes and are never reported or investigated... It is clear from the evidence set out [in Keown's research] that all that is known with certainty in the Netherlands is that euthanasia is being practised on a scale vastly exceeding the 'known' (truthfully reported and recorded) cases. There is little sense in which it can be said, in any of its forms, to be under control">> (I.J. Keown, "The Law and Practice of Euthanasia in The Netherlands", in The Law Quarterly Review, 108, January 1992, pp. 67, 78).

John Keown's further research in The Netherlands found:

<<It appears that the overwhelming majority of cases are falsely certified as death by natural causes and are never reported or investigated.... It is clear from the evidence set out. In over half these cases, the decision was discussed with the patient or the patient had previously indicated his wish for the hastening of death, but in "several hundred cases there was no discussion with the patient and there also was no known wish from the patient for hastening the end of life">> '(Euthanasia in the Netherlands: Sliding Down the Slippery Slope', Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy, 1 Jan 2012, vol 9, issue 2, available at: (<https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2150/e78bb1116698de8e3906dc57073d4d2c9168.pdf >)

The evidence points to whenever euthanasia is legislated it cannot be controlled in practice.

I'm in favour of it, we are told from childhood that we are responsible for our own lives and killing one's self is part of that responsibility.

Is Mise,

<<I'm in favour of it, we are told from childhood that we are responsible for our own lives and killing one's self is part of that responsibility>>

Are you saying or inferring from childhood your parents told you that you are responsible for your own behaviour and that includes suicide? If you want to kill yourself at any age, go ahead. It's your choice and if that's what you want to do, who are we as parents to stop you? We won't stop you.

So, if you wanted to kill yourself at age 16, without a terminal illness, you would agree with that view of responsibility and freedom that was taught to you by your parents?