The Labor Party has backed the removal of legal barriers preventing the use of end-of-life care via telehealth, and changed its constitution to allow members to cast a conscience vote.
An amendment passed at the ALP national conference in Adelaide on July 24 clears the way to remove a 30-year-old provision in the federal criminal code that effectively bans telehealth consultations on voluntary assisted dying.
Moving the amendment, Victorian MP Ryan Batchelor said the laws hindered care and caused unnecessary delays.
“It’s inequitable. It’s distressing, and it must change,” he said.
“This amendment commits federal Labor to removing these barriers to allow state law to work unhindered.”
Victoria was the first state to legalise euthanasia, with Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales (NSW), Tasmania and South Australia following suit. The Northern Territory will vote to legalise voluntary assisted dying in August.
Union delegate Steph Naunton said rural and remote communities faced huge hurdles in being able to exercise a choice on dying with dignity.
“Accessing health services should not depend upon your postcode,” she said.
ACT MP Caitlin Tough said a law designed to prevent suicide-related material was obstructing a lawful, tightly regulated medical service for people who were already dying.
“A doctor may lawfully have a conversation across a desk, but they face criminal risk for the same communication by telephone or video,” she said.
“In practice, it actually means a person accessing voluntary assisted dying cannot have a support person on the phone or on a video recording while they meet with their health professional to talk about their options.”
NSW MP Sally Quinnell, who spoke against the motion, was the first dissenting voice at the three-day conference.
Telehealth “cannot be the answer to all of our health needs,” she said.
“The conversations we’re speaking about today are literally life and death conversations,” Quinnell said.
“This is complex, nuanced, and shouldn’t be done over a Zoom call—it happens in person with empathy, careful listening, and human interaction.”
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland subsequently moved a resolution, passed unanimously, to change the party’s national constitution to allow a conscious vote on voluntary assisted dying.
“I am personally not convinced that a person confronting an end-of-life decision shouldn’t be afforded the dignity of a personal, face-to-face consultation with a medical practitioner,” she said.
“The fact that states may not have put in place the required resources to support the laws that they have passed is not a particularly persuasive argument.”
While the conference determines the direction of the party and its policy stances, it remains up to its parliamentary team to determine how, and when, the measures are implemented.
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By Abe Maddison in Adelaide
