After a relentless 30-year grassroots campaign, including the 2022 overturning of Kevin Andrews 1997 Commonwealth veto, assisted dying rights have finally been restored to the Northern Territory with the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 2026 passing on August 27.
But while pleased voluntary assisted dying (VAD) will now be legal Australia-wide, advocates remain concerned the inclusion of two discredited and obstructive “safeguards”, which rendered the bill far less accessible than its 1995 namesake.
The new VAD law was one of the most anticipated conscience votes in the Northern Territory. Reserved for contentious social or bioethical matters that divide public and parliamentary opinion across party lines, the premise of a conscience vote rests on three pillars: the suspension of party discipline; individual judgement on matters of personal morality or individual conscience; and leadership permission, where the leader and senior members of the party officially grant MPs permission.
NT Attorney General Marie-Clare Boothby first confirmed on January 2 that the Country Liberal Party would introduce a VAD bill in “mid-2026”, and that she would be “voting in favour”.
The NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro then confirmed to a community forum in June it was on the parliamentary agenda, again stating it would be a free vote for all Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs).
Finocchiaro then announced that the CLP had “the numbers” to pass the bill without amendments, regardless of their merit or origin. Many of amendments came from her own party, including from the head of the NT’s VAD inquiry. Maybe that was her point.
Apart from kneecapping the significant clinical and advocacy opposition to the CLP’s inclusion of two obstructive and widely discredited “safeguards” — the General Practicioner gag clause and 12 months-or-less until death prognosis time frame for eligibility — the Chief Minister made a mockery of her own MP’s right to a free vote.
Dr Tanzil Rahman, CLP MLA and a former head of the CLP’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee (LCAC) Voluntary Assisted Dying Inquiry, argued against his own party’s stance on the inclusions during the parliamentary debate in August.
The final LCAC report recommended against both criteria. The parliamentary debate highlighted their obstructive nature and complete lack of clinical or procedural value as real safeguards.
The only correction to the bill was when Rahman noticed an outdated version of the Aged Care Act in the draft law. This was critical as the updated Aged Care Act 2024, includes the right of people in residential aged care, including in a religious based institution, to have “choice and control” over their care, including end-of-life care.
Had this not been corrected, it would have significantly impacted the outcome of several other listed amendments: to ensure conscientious objection be restricted to individuals and not afforded to institutions; to outlaw deliberate obstruction of the VAD process (including in residential aged care facilities); and that objecting facilities must provide minimum referral information, such as the VAD Care Navigator Service phone number.
All were voted down.
The debate lasted almost 13 hours even though many MLAs did not speak.
The Northern Territory Parliament voted unanimously for the bill, with one abstention by Chansey Peach, a Territory Labor MLA, who cited concerns about its impact on Indigenous communities. (Finocchiaro later denied anyone was pressured to vote in lockstep).
New bill goes backwards
Marshall Perron, architect of the original Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995, told the media and the Voices of VAD podcast that the inclusion of the two obstructive clauses were “major flaws”.
“Both of these were inserted in the legislation against the recommendations of the government’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and also against the recommendations of the doctors, the AMA of the Northern Territory and other academic observers,” Perron said. Had they been left out, as recommended, it “would have made it a quite excellent piece of legislation”, he said.
“More people were covered by the 1995 legislation than is covered by the 2026 legislation,” he said. “For politicians not to take that into account and move legislation forward, not backward, is avoiding their responsibilities.”
The only vocal defender of the two “safeguards” was the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL).
The political alignment between the CLP and the ACL is not new; both support winding back anti-discrimination and hate-speech protections in favour of religious institutions.
During the 2024 election campaign, the ACL specifically questioned CLP candidates about VAD through its “NT Votes” campaign website. Asked if it would oppose it, the CLP’s response was that it would be a “conscience vote”.
The ACL repeatedly invoked the CLP’s landslide election win as giving it a mandate against introducing an VAD law. In its 2025 submission to the LCAC Inquiry, ACL argued Territorians had chosen the CLP because, unlike Labor, it made no commitment to legislate it, beyond saying it would be a conscience vote.
When the CLP was eventually pressured to act on a VAD law, by setting up the LCAC Inquiry, the ACL’s NT Director Nicholas Lay said: “We oppose any attempt to legalise Assisted Suicide in the NT, though we welcome another opportunity to consult on the matter, as the consultation done in 2023 [by the previous Territory Labor government] was a sham”.
The CLP’s LCAC Inquiry came back with the same result as the 2023 Labor inquiry had — both recommended VAD, without gag clauses or 12-month prognosis time frames.
But the Chief Minister and the AG ignored that, allowing the CLP to claim victory for a law it had spent two years avoiding.
The law is now in its 18-month implementation period and will officially start in February 2028. This does not help dying Territorians who, after 30 years of fighting for these laws, may yet again be forced to suffer, against their will, unable to access assisted dying because of safeguards that only protect minority religious interests and their friends in government.
[Suzanne James is an advocate for voluntary assisted dying.]