Monday 22 May 2017

Assisted Dying Bill, Nursing Homes, Millers Point Evictions, Land Clearing Codes, Sorry Day & Heart and Hand 2

Assisted Dying Bill

I joined National, Liberal, Labor and Green colleagues to launch our public consultation bill to provide certain people who are terminally ill the right to get assistance from a doctor to end their life. After looking at the best assisted dying laws, and considering feedback from stakeholders and other parliamentary colleagues, we think the bill represents one of the most robust regimes in the world. We now want to hear further from the community to make sure we have the best bill possible to introduce in the Spring session of Parliament later this year.

Read our media release HERE.  You can review the bill HERE. We will review all feedback to make sure we have the best bill possible to introduce in the Spring session of Parliament later this year.

Voluntary assisted dying is a last resort option; I strongly support increased resources into palliative care. See my questions in Parliament HERE and HERE. This week is Palliative Care Week info HERE. .  

Nursing Homes

I supported a Shooters Fishers and Farmers bill to require all nursing homes with high care needs residents to have a registered nurse onsite at all times. Registered nurses can administer vital drugs for pain relief, know when to refer a patient for further medical attention and can perform life-saving procedures. Given some of the horror stories from nursing homes, we need to ensure adequate care to give residents and their families peace of mind. While the government opposed the bill in the lower house,

I understand it is considering the requirement further, which was in place up until 2014. My speech is HERE. 

Millers Point Evictions

Only a very small number of public housing tenants remain in Millers Point due to complex social and health reasons that make moving particularly problematic. In Parliament, I again asked the government to let them stay while it sells already vacant properties. The community welcomed the 24 units now being kept in the area but they do not meet the needs of all remaining residents. A compassionate approach can achieve the government’s aims while protecting vulnerable long term tenants.

Locals refer to Kent Street as Rent Street because some low cost homes that were sold have been converted to short term rentals, undermining the resilient and supportive community. My speech is HERE.

Land Clearing Codes

Environment groups have labelled the regulations for new land clearing laws as ‘tree killing codes’. I opposed the laws in Parliament because they threaten biodiversity and threatened species by opening the door to broadscale land clearing and making it easier to offset habitat loss without any real biodiversity improvements.

Recent research shows that koala populations across NSW have declined by 26 per cent over 20 years or just three generations and new laws only act to heighten the threats against them. See the report HERE. Learn more at the Environment Defenders Office seminar Thursday 1 June 2017, 12:30-1:30pm at McCabes Lawyers Level 38 19 MLC Centre Martin Place, information HERE.

Add your voice to the Stand Up for Nature Alliance campaign to keep sensitive areas like wetlands, koala habitat and rainforests, threatened species and ecological communities all safe from clearing at www.standupfornature.org.au.  

Sorry Day

Its 20 years since the Bringing Them Home report, exposing Australia’s shocking forced child removal policies that broke up Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families throughout the last century. An estimated 17,000 Aboriginal children remain in out of home care right now. There’s a rally on National Sorry Day Friday 26 May 5.30pm at Victoria Park. Information HERE. 

Heart and Hand 2

St Canice’s Church works with some of the most vulnerable people in the local area. The Heart and Hand 2 Concert of Opera + Song on Sunday 28 May, 3pm at St Canice’s will raise funds for the St Canice’s Kitchen and Railaco Jesuit Mission East Timor. Details HERE.