MP pushing revival of Death with Dignity bill

By RUTH BERRY political reporter

New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown is reviving his bill designed to allow mercy killings and believes Lesley Martin should be discharged without conviction.

Martin, a euthanasia campaigner, was this week found guilty of attempting to murder her terminally ill mother.

Her lawyer wants Martin discharged without conviction and Mr Brown yesterday supported that call, saying she had suffered enough.

"She experienced huge stress in her life at the time of her mother's illness and death, and now with the ordeal of going through a court trial."

Martin was not a criminal and pursuing her as if she were one was a waste of taxpayers' money.

"I say let her go free now."

Mr Brown's Death with Dignity private member's bill was narrowly defeated, 60 votes to 57, on its first reading in Parliament last year.

Eight years earlier, MPs had also rejected attempts to introduce voluntary euthanasia.

Mr Brown believed last year that Parliament's rules prevented an MP from trying to reintroduce a bill in the same term in which it had been defeated.

But he said yesterday that he had recently been told the ban applied only to the year in which the bill was introduced, so he planned another attempt.

Although the thrust of the bill would remain unchanged, he was reworking details to improve its clarity, he said.

Private member's bills are balloted and few see the light of day.

Mr Brown conceded that unless the Government decided to adopt the bill, he would be lucky if it was introduced again.

Prime Minister Helen Clark supported the bill last year, but a spokesman said it was a conscience issue and there were no plans to turn it into a Government bill.

Mr Brown's bill would have allowed the seriously ill to ask a doctor to help them die.

But even if it had been passed, voluntary euthanasia would not have become law until it was supported by a majority of New Zealand voters in a referendum.

Act MP Gerry Eckhoff called for more honesty about the issue.

Many medical and nursing professionals covertly assisted terminally ill patients to die.

"I personally have heard of a case where a GP directed a nurse to administer 'a little bit extra' morphine, which hastened the death of a patient suffering the end stages of a respiratory disease," said Mr Eckhoff.

"It would seem that it is acceptable for a GP to end a patient's suffering, but unacceptable for a suitably qualified family member, like Lesley Martin, to help a loved one."

A Holmes poll last night showed 82 per cent of respondents believed someone in Lesley Martin's position should not go to prison.