Federal parliament restores ACT and NT right to legislate on euthanasia

The federal parliament has voted to restore the rights of the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory legislatures to make their own laws on voluntary assisted dying, ending a 27-year prohibition established in 1997 when the Howard government overrode the NT's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act.

The restoration, achieved through a Senate majority that included Labor, the Greens, and several crossbench senators, was described by NT advocates as one of the most significant advances in territory rights in Australian history. Darwin was the original location where voluntary assisted dying legislation passed in Australia — in 1995, before federal intervention stripped the territory of that law — making the restoration of that right particularly significant to the Territory.

NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler confirmed the Territory government would introduce legislation in the next parliamentary sitting period to establish a voluntary assisted dying framework consistent with the models operating in most Australian states. "Territorians have waited 27 years for the right to make this decision for themselves. That wait is now over," she said.

Federal Territories Minister Murray Watt said the vote corrected a longstanding anomaly in Australia's constitutional framework that had treated territory residents as second-class citizens on matters of personal and medical autonomy. "Territorians are Australians. They deserve the same rights as every other Australian to have these choices available to them," he said.

Darwin's medical community will now work with the NT government to develop the clinical, ethical, and regulatory framework for a VAD scheme, drawing on the experience of the Victorian, WA, and Queensland models that have been in operation for several years.

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