Western Victoria MP Simon Ramsay is confident he did the right thing following an “exhausting” debate around voluntary euthanasia laws that passed the the upper house on Wednesday.
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The Liberal MP voted in support of the bill after pushing for amendments to be introduced, including changing the required life expectancy of those seeking voluntary euthanasia from 12 months to six months.
“I’m pleased our parliamentary leader, (Opposition Leader) Matthew Guy saw fit to give us a conscience vote and I have exercised that without political interference,” Mr Ramsay said.
“I understand there will be people very disappointed in my position, and I’m sorry, but sometimes you have to go with what you believe is right and that’s what I’ve done.
“If they want to persecute me for that I’ll live with that.”
Mr Ramsay said he spent a lot of time talking to different groups and he received a huge amount of emails and direct contact to his office.
“I diligently read all of them and spoke to many people,” he said.
“I tried to keep an open mind because I felt it was important that we have in our society an ability for people to make a choice about their eventual death if in fact they have a terminal illness and are in a a lot of pain that palliative care wouldn’t satisfy.”
The bill passed with 22 votes to 18, with a sitting that began on Tuesday afternoon and ended just after 4pm on Wednesday.
Mr Ramsay said ideally he would have been able to include an amendment relating to elder abuse and coercion in the bill.
“At the end of the day, my primary purpose was to get a commitment from the government to put more money in palliative care in regional Victoria,” he said.
The MP said he would work to hold the state government to its commitment.
“I want to ensure that regional Victoria gets a standard of palliative care that won’t influence the choices of those facing a terminal illness who want to be assessed,” Mr Ramsay said.