Dr. Matthew Dor?:

We in palliative care see how vulnerable people can become. This is why there is consistency here. There is that delicacy to them. People going to Switzerland has been mentioned. The argument of equality is exactly the slippery slope. You are essentially arguing that people are going to Switzerland and, therefore, we should have it here but that is exactly the same argument as, "Well I'm 17 rather 18, therefore, I have should have it" or "I don't have capacity, I've got dementia or Alzheimer's and it is going to get worse, therefore, why can't I have it pre-empted?" Another argument is, "I'm suffering for longer with a chronic illness, therefore, why does it have to a terminal diagnosis?" All those things become arguments of equality of access to a medical treatment.

To answer the Senator's question about whether palliative care is affected, the answer is "Yes". This has been shown internationally. A really good paper said that the average growth in palliative care services has stalled in countries where assisted dying is legal compared to other countries without assisted dying. Notably Belgium and the Netherlands experienced no growth between 2012 and 2019. We have seen that in Australia where voluntary assisted dying has come out of the palliative care budget and it has lost lots of money that way. Not only does it take palliative care away, it puts the whole of palliative care into existential crisis. The majority sees that the ethoses do not match. That is the truth of it.