Pro-euthanasia group to switch website to NZ

A pro-euthanasia group says it is switching its website to New Zealand to evade new Australian laws which target people who encourage suicide on the internet.

The proposed federal laws, which were introduced to Australia's Parliament in May, will make it a crime to publish information on the internet that instructs or promotes suicide.

Under the new laws, fines for such offending could be up to $110,000 for an individual.

As a result of the laws, Exit International's counselling service and website will move to New Zealand, while the group's political arm will remain in Australia, The Australian newspaper reports.

Some members of the group of elderly and terminally ill Australians recently defied the Australian Government's anti-euthanasia laws by making their own barbiturate-like pills.

The pills are similar to the fast-acting drug Nembutal, which was recommended under the Northern Territory's now-defunct voluntary euthanasia legislation.

The right-to-die advocates, aged from 55 to 94, are all members of Exit International, headed by voluntary euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, which will start its two-day annual meeting in Brisbane on Friday.

All of the people making the so-called "peaceful pills" said they had emphysema or motor neurone disease.

The youngest in the pill-making party, Kay, 55, from Victoria, told The Bulletin magazine that she had been recently diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

"I don't want my husband or kids to look after me or to go into a nursing home," she said.

The 20-strong group made the drug using information from text books and friends with a knowledge of chemistry.

John, from Queensland, said: "It's been a rewarding experience and the main message is that the Federal Government can introduce all these draconian measures but they can't stop us".

The Suicide Related Material Offences Bill passed in the Australian Parliament in June will take effect on January 6 and outlaw the use of phone, fax, email and the internet to promote suicide.

- NZPA