Professor Roderick MacLeod:

I find myself warming to Senator Mullen more and more because what he is saying is absolutely right. We do not have a lot of hard evidence for what we are talking about. I mentioned previously that the notion of evidence-based practice is a balance of two things, namely factual evidence and practical wisdom. What the palliative medicine specialists are, in the majority, telling us is that they do not favour this at all. They are the ones who spend most time at the bedside with people who are dying and with their families and we must ask why they do not want to be involved. It is a fairly simple question to ask. In New Zealand there are over 18,000 doctors but only 300 of them have volunteered for the training to help people to die. We have to ask why that would be because it is very well remunerated. It is a lot better remunerated than providing palliative care to a patient. There are lots of mismatches here. We have heard an awful lot in the last two hours about evidence but while evidence may be peer reviewed, it changes. Evidence changes over time and Senator Mullen has brought up a lot of very pertinent questions to which we do not really have answers.