Rodney Voters - Where were You?

A few months ago, New Zealanders polled about 75% in favour of a change in the law so that a suffering, dying patient could ask for medical help to shorten one's last days. By far the larger proportion of the NZ population appear to want to have personal Choice at the end.

However, when the Justice Committee of Parliament called for submissions on the End of Choice Bill that would make this possible, some 85% of "submissions" were opposed to any change in the law. Some members of the Justice Committee such as Maggie Barry believe that is the correct figure for the whole population. Again and again she has that declared 85% of NZ is against any change.
Rodney friends: did you offer your views, even to a very brief  note: "I am in favour of the proposed Bill"

When Mark Mitchell called a public meeting to debate the issues in our electorate last year there was an informal vote taken on the principle. The Bill was marginally defeated on the numbers attending. This has been pretty common in such meetings throughout the country.  Some politicians could take this to mean that more than half of us in their electorates do not want change!
Rodney sympathisers, how many of you were there that night? How many of you felt that vote was meaningful?

When I've made the fairly obvious point that the opposition by submitters and attenders did not seem to represent the mind of the community as a whole, I've been told that Parliament has to listen to the groups who make the strongest case.
Rodney voters, do you think Government should legislate mainly for the group that writes the largest number of one-line submissions on the instructions of their church leaders?

I don't think so. I am disappointed that so many of us who would like to see a change in the present law simply did not get off our bums to prepare submissions or show an interest in meetings. We just can't be bothered.

Well, friends, we can still write and talk to our MPs. At the end of the day every MP will have to vote on this issue. As a good electorate MP ours is always open to comments from Rodney voters.

If ever there was a time to write or say something to your MP, it is now.

Mark is at:  markmitchell@national.org.nz   or mp.rodney.parliament.govt.nz

More video clips

An On demand TV programme called Re: has done some short pieces on death and dying recently. This is one that I was interviewed for last week. It's on Facebook and has had over 6000 Views...

A slightly longer version - the "Director's Cut" - is here.

More on the Orewa Meeting

Our other local paper, Hibiscus Matters, has printed a comprehensive write-up of the Orewa debate on the End of Life Choice Bill. It tells me there were 400 present, a lot more than I estimated.

It offers comments from a selection of audience members on both sides but also gave a lot of space to written quotes from myself (I didn't as much as ask a question on the night!), emphasising the usefulness of getting together and hearing others' views. It was not as pessimistic as my post of 22 August for which I am grateful. We need to keep having the debate, no matter how boring it may seem to those of us who've travelled with the issues for years.

However, the tally of only 200 votes handed in on the night is almost 50-50 on the main issue (Let's face it, the Bill would be lost on half a dozen of those votes!). But this informal tally of self-selected people cannot possibly be said to be representative of the Rodney electorate population at large. If our MP is thinking that will be good enough to "get the mind of the electorate" that would be a sad day for democracy.

Where Does Meaning Meet?

A packed hall in Orewa last night had a really good airing of the issues around the End of Life Choice Bill. On a dirty evening there was an excellent turnout of locals - and probably a few carpet-baggers from adjacent electorates - and a top-line national panel of speakers for and against. The audience gave them frequent but not especially enthusiastic applause.

There were questions from the floor for a full hour but, as with the panel speakers, no new ground was broken. There are no new insights into the issue on either side.

I was reminded of the two housewives (this story must have come from the 1950s!) who used to argue the big issues of life across the fence between their two properties. They could never come to any agreement on whatever they discussed because they were arguing from different premisses.

That's the problem with the End of Life Choice discussion. Both sides start from totally different understandings of the meaning of life, death, compassion, and, especially, palliative care. Both even use language that is exclusive to their own side and not acceptable to the other.

It's great that there was such a good audience last night. I hope that many of them came without the strong prejudices held by some of us who have grappled with the issues for years. Perhaps last night's newbies to the discussion can make more dispassionate evaluation of the issues on both sides. If that is taking place around our community, the meeting must be considered a great success.

Sorry, FB friends, I've had my mind of lots of other things than updating you on the End of Life Choice Meetings last weekend.

The sparsely attended National Annual Meeting did all its business fairly easily and returned the existing team for another year. President Maryan Street made sure that we didn't muck around a whole lot over the business.

But there's a sense of "Where do we go now?" with the Justice Committee being given another six months to report back to Parliament. March 2019 seems a long, long way away right now. You would have to feel that it's a deliberate strategy to dilute the debate. It certainly dilutes my chance of the Bill being passed in time for me to ask for Medical Aid in Dying if I need it.

In this awkward interim it would be easy for us to fire off a lot of publicity that got lost to sight by the time the bill is actually getting back into Parliament. But there are things that we can do with the existing internet capability and I must do some thinking about some new stuff on my own changing situation.

On the second day we attended the district Annual Meeting which was also a fairly quiet affair but featured a really interesting report by Jack Havill on recent surveys of doctors. It seems there is a substantial body of medicos who will be willing to work in Medical Aid in Dying when the Bill is eventually put into law. This gives the lie to objections that there won't be enough doctors to manage the programme.

Then yesterday I did an interview with a couple of Communications students who are doing a doco on the issue. The interviewer had really done his research (he'd already interviewed "Turkey" Collins and David Seymour) and I enjoyed the challenge.

All in all, an interesting few days with EOLC...

Shades of "Turkey" O'Connor

I wasn't able to attend but I admired the motivation behind those who called a recent meeting to discuss the End-of-Life Choice issues. Their advertised intention was to have a balanced, dispassionate, calm discussion of the subject. What a great place to start, I thought.
However, a first-person report that came to me about the event was that the Hon Maggie Barry was leading speaker one side of the debate. She might have been a good selection as she is a member of the Justice Select Committee which has to study the David Seymour Bill for Parliament. But I am told that she used words like "killed" and "murder" in the context of the discussion. Evidently she made it abundantly clear that she, like "Turkey" O'Connor who chaired the previous Committee*, has not only made up her mind on the issue but is resolved to do battle with it in ways that, in a civilised society, should surely be called into question. My informant said the event was not a debate at all but was simply "The Maggie Barry Show".
On a Select Committee of Parliament we hope for people who have open minds and have the willingness to explore all sides of the issue without descending to manipulation of the terms and derogatory verbal abuse. I hope the Committee includes many who will reject these latter techniques for their arguments on this particular committee.
I hear that the Catholic constituency has again orchestrated a flood of submissions along the lines of their own distinctive theology and doctrine. Again, no doubt. they have been told not to mention the fact that they are Catholic; quite rightly, they fear that a maturing society may not wish to be dictated to by an ancient faith. Indeed, a lot of other churches - including my own - have failed to declare on the matter or just kicked for touch. But the principle of compassion may yet find a place in the hearts of those who make this decision for us.
Here's a funny thing; didn't Jesus talk a lot about compassion?

* Dedicated readers of my blog may recall that one of my respondents observed that asking O'Connor to chair a Committee on End of Life Choice was like asking a Turkey to convene a meeting on the future of Thanksgiving. 

77-46 OK

So David Seymour's End-of-Life Choice Bill has passed its first reading - with a substantial majority compared with previous attempts in the last couple of decades. The debate is now a matter of formal Parliamentary action.

But NZ First's demand for a referendum is a bit of a spoiler. It would delay the final law beyond the time I might have wanted to avail myself of it. It smacks of party manipulation of what is supposed to be a conscience vote, too. I suspect that Seymour accepted this for the sake of the kind of solid vote that has been achieved to at least get the Bill off to a Select Committee.

And I note one Member who, having finally declared his personal view against the proposal just a few short weeks ago is listed among the "Ayes". I am sure there will be others who, while not sympathetic to the Bill, would be willing to permit the matter to be debated thoroughly. Good on them, I say. And thanks.

And a thorough hearing we hope to have from the Select Committee on Justice. It would have been a travesty of justice if it had gone back to "Turkey" O'Connor's Select Health Committee which took so long to accomplish so little.