The NT pioneered voluntary euthanasia before the law was overruled. Now there is a campaign to restore it – ABC News

Sharon Cramp-Oliver has boxes full of her mum's old diaries.

In them, 77-year-old Liz Holmes wrote about the adventures of her three children, what made the nightly news and in the years leading up to her death the unbearable pain she experienced and detailed plans to end her own life.

WARNING: This story contains content that some readers may find distressing.

Liz spent 12 years battling breast cancer, had a broken back and suffered through two painful hip replacements, one of which dislocated itself in early 2017.

"This is hell on earth," she wrote, just months before she took her own life in September, 2017.

"I have nothing to look forward to, just pain and indignity," a later entry read.

Liz also wrote that if she could have accessed voluntary euthanasia, she would have.

But Liz lived in New South Wales, one of the six Australian states and territories that do not allow assisted dying.

Liz's daughter Sharon, who lives in the Northern Territory, said if voluntary euthanasia was permitted in the NT, she would have brought her mum up to die surrounded by people who loved her.

She decided to share her mother's story for the first time in the hope it may spark a new conversation about assisted dying.

"Wouldn't it have been nice for her to have gone to sleep with her family around her, rather than do that by herself?" Sharon said.

In 1995, the Northern Territory became the first place in the world to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

It was a private bill put forward by then-chief minister Marshall Perron, which came into effect in 1996.

"I had just always felt that a person who was was close to dying and suffering terribly ought to have the opportunity to advance their death, if that was their wish, to end suffering," Mr Perron said.

In the nine months voluntary euthanasia was legal in the Northern Territory, four terminally ill people used it to die: one Territorian and three others who travelled up to the NT to end their lives.

But in 1996, federal Liberal MP Kevin Andrews put forward a different bill passed by the Commonwealth in 1997 which overrode the right of the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory to legalise assisted dying.

Mr Andrews argued in Parliament that legalising voluntary euthanasia sent a "powerful message" to the Australian community that vulnerable people were "expendable" and not valued, and the law could expose patients to "pressure, abuse and a loss of autonomy".

Australian Medical Association NT branch president Robert Parker said while he wanted the NT to have the power to make its own laws on assisted dying, the AMA believed doctors should not be involved in interventions which had the "primary intention" of ending someone's life.

In its position paper on the subject, the AMA calls on governments to invest in and adequately resource palliative care facilities to improve the end of life care for Australians, no matter where they live.

"The AMA as it currently stands, cannot support physician-assisted suicide and it says it is an issue for populations and governments," Dr Parker said.

In the 23 years since the Andrews Bill was passed, there have been several highly publicised movements to allow the ACT and NT to regain control of euthanasia laws.

And this year, with Queensland and Tasmania set to debate similar laws and a bill on voluntary assisted dying tabled in SA Parliament, the Northern Territory's Federal Labor Member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, says his office has been discussing a bill to "restore the rights of Territorians to legislate on euthanasia" with his counterparts in the ACT.

NT Country Liberal Party Senator Sam McMahon has backed the call to allow the Territory to make its own laws about assisted dying, and said given the right regulatory framework she was "fully supportive" of voluntary euthanasia.

But former chief minister Mr Perron said it was time for Territory leaders to stop talking about introducing a bill and start actively campaigning for the NT to be allowed to make its own laws about the issue.

"This is not a voluntary euthanasia issue, this is an issue of the equal democratic representation of Australians. We should not be discriminated on the grounds of geography," Mr Perron said.

Mr Perron said as other states legislated assisted dying, it became more "absurd" that the Northern Territory the pioneer of assisted dying laws in Australia was denied the right to decide for itself about the issue.

Both Chief Minister Michael Gunner and Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro agree the Northern Territory deserves the same power as states to determine laws on a range of issues, including voluntary euthanasia.

Now, Mr Gunner is calling on Territorians who agree to reach out to leaders in the nation's capital.

"I need Territorians to help me here as well. Get on the phone or write an email to politicians in Canberra and tell them we want to decide this issue for ourselves," Mr Gunner said.

"People power can make the difference."

But despite the bipartisan support in the Northern Territory, a spokesman for Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter remained firm, telling the ABC there were "no plans" to introduce legislation to repeal the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997.

Judy Dent's husband, Bob, was the first person to die from a legal, voluntary lethal injection.

Speaking from the same suburban Darwin home in which her husband ended his life, Judy said she fully supported any renewed push to allow the Territory to make its own laws about assisted dying.

"I'm hoping that when more of the states have passed their own legislation, they will say it is not right to treat the citizens of the ACT and the NT as second-class citizens," she said.

"They should restore our rights. Not restore the legislation, but restore our rights to ask for such legislation."

Bob Dent died on September 22, 1996, after a long battle with incurable prostate cancer.

Judy remembers holding his hand as he took his last breath and said the pain "just disappeared" from her husband's face in the minutes before he passed.

"I almost thought I saw him smile," Judy recalled.

"But certainly all the signs of pain just disappeared. All the frowns, it at all just disappeared. And then he stopped breathing. It was very calm, peaceful."

Bob was a "strong willed" man, Judy laughed, and when he set his mind to something, he'd do whatever it took to achieve it.

And dying on his own terms was no exception, she said.

"I didn't want him to die, but he was going to die anyway, so why not let him die on his terms, with him in control?" Judy said.

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The NT pioneered voluntary euthanasia before the law was overruled. Now there is a campaign to restore it - ABC News