10.02.28

02.47

MAX BELL LYING ON HOSPITAL BED

tape 26, page 4

I hate to think that ...ah God...if I approach the gates and he says..no, son you can’t come in  because you...you did it with euthanasia.  (Laughs).  I’ll be introuble then, wouldn’t I?  What am I gonna do then?  (Laughs).  Turn around and run, eh?

Q.  Go downstairs?

A.  Oh ho.

03.17

MAX TAKES A DRINK

v/o

Max Bell is dying painfully of cancer.  He came to Darwin last month so that this doctor could legally kill him by lethal injection.

03.28

DOCTOR SETTING UP I/V EQUIPMENT AT PALMERSTON

page 3

But the Northern Territory’s week-old euthanasia law might not deliver relief.

03.32

DR. NITSCHKE

His situation is so serious, and he’s suffering so much that he really does want to end his life, and so he’s saying things like ..... if I could I’d like you to end it now, but he’s also aware of the impossible situation that that places me in.

03.54

EXTERIOR OF ASSEMBLY

v/o

The politics which have driven the world’s first euthanasia law are bizarre.

04.00

INTERIOR OF ASSEMBLY

v/o

The balance of the tiny Northern Territory parliament today does not support the law.  The Government claims to be committed to its implementation, yet the Health Minister responsible personally opposes it.

The Chief Minister, also an opponent, still rues the trauma the law has wrought.

04.19

SHANE STONE, Chief Minister

tape 102, page 7

It has been one of the most tortuous, painful experiences that I, my colleagues and, I think, members of this community have ever been through.

04.29

MAX DRIVING CAR

v/o

It’s been painful in a real way for Max Bell.

04.40

Last minute safeguards written into the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act are thwarting his wish for a prompt and painless death.

So too are threats of legal recrimination against the Territory’s small and largely conservative medical community.

Max Bell is left wondering whether the law was set up to fail. Whether his has been a journey on the road to nowhere.

05.06

05.33

TITLE

BOXING WEIGH-IN

WITH NAT SOT OF PROGRAM

ANNOUNCEMENT

v/o

Philip Nitschke was a late-comer to medicine after a knockabout career as a physicist and park ranger.

It’s a mark of his quirkiness that he’s about the only resident doctor that the Northern Territory Boxing Association can call on for medical supervision.

Without Dr. Philip Nitschke officiating, this Humpty Doo Boxing Club night near Darwin could not proceed.

Nitschke has been a rebel with many causes during his twently five years in the Northern Territory.

He’s a passionate advocate of euthanasia.  He wants to be the first doctor to use the Rights of the Terminally Ill law, which he identifies with the psychological make-up of the Northern Territory.

06.27

CROWD

Dr. NITSCHKE

Tape 29, page 3

They like to see themselves as different, see themselves as frontiers folk, if you like, in the Territory .... in the Australian scene, see themselves as different to the rest of Australia and so when you come along and introduce legislation and people would argue, but this legislation was never passed anywhere else in the world.  Certainly nowhere else in Australia.

Territorians would say well, so what?  We’re different, we do things different, we do things first, we do things better.  Now, usually that leads to, that sort of wanting to be different, usually leads to a deadly conservatism and a sort of very, if you like, redneck coservative political climate in the Territory but, in this instance, we’ve seen some very progressive legislation come through riding with that particular psychological aspect of Territorians.

07.26

FISHERMAN’S OLYMPICS

v/o

The image of the Teritorian as rugged pioneer tends to be self-fulfilling.

Darwin’s fishermen’s annual Olympics

are joined with the sort of abandonment that Nitschke brings to his mission to be the first doctor legally to kill off his patient.

The isolation of the place begets a certain jingoism.  Certainly it begets a strong strain of anti-intellectualism.

Even former Chief Minister, Marshall Perron, the architect of the Territory’s euthanasia law, acknowledges that its passage was made easier by - to quote him - an absence of influential intellectuals.

08.24

MARSHALL PERRON

Page 11

We’re a small community.  We don’t have a lot of academics and intellectuals in the public arena.  There’s a couple, but we take umbrage at people from the south who tell us how we should run the Northern Territory.  There’s always been a defence amongst Territorians that we don’t like being told what to do by southerners  in inverted commas as we...as we sort of refer to you all.

08.52

ASSEMBLY

v/o

The legislative assembly makes laws for the 170 thousand citizens of the Northern Territory without the review of an Upper House

Twenty five assembly members with between only three and four thousand electors each sit here in this vast and opulent building.

A motion to vote on the euthanasia bill was passed by thirteen votes to twelve early one morning in May last year, after a long and emotional debate.

09.22

Dr. CHRIS WAKE

NT President, AMA

page 14

Basically there were some people

who’d done their homework and ... put on a very good performance.  There were others who were just also rans.  I don’t think the Northern Territory government covered themselves - the Northern Territory Parliament - with any glory on the night of May 25th.  It was really quite...quite a poor scene to behold.

Q.  Also rans and some of them    also drunk?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Clearly, plainly drunk?

A.  Unsteady

09.52

PERRON

page 5

I can assure you that on this subject every single member of the Territory Parliament knew exactly what they were doing when a vote on this issue came up.

Q.  But if you’d passed a breath tester around that night, would there have been some positive returns?

A.  Well, breath testers are designed to test the reflex of drivers travelling at speed and I guess there’d be a lot of politicians who...who might not pass the test of reaction even before they’d had a single drink - the physical reaction of leaping on the brake in a hurry, aso I don’t think that the test would be relevant.

PERRON FEEDING FISH

10.41

v/o

The Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was the political epitaph of Marshall Perron, an assembly member since 1984 and Chief Minister since 1992, til his retirement last year.

These days he helps out at the family’s tourism business on the edge of Darwin’s central business district.

Marshall Perron acknowledges that his sway and profile as Chief Minister helped him to shepherd his private members’ euthanasia bill through the Assembly.

He know the law would have a national impact but he successfully resisted attempts to limit its use to Territory residents.

11.24

PERRON

page 15

You know, inter-state trade is not what we went for.  It’s...it’s unfortunate there has to be - but it shows one thing and that is there is a need for legislation such as this and that people are prepared, some, to go to very considerable lengths to relieve themselves of suffering.

11.52

MAX BELL SEATED ON BED EATING

v/o

Max Bell, aged 66, has driven three thousand kilometres from Broken Hill to relieve his suffering.

He’s had major surgery for a cancerous ulcer and most of his stomach has been hacked out.

Max Bell has never been a big drinker, but he’s also got cirrhosis of the liver and the cancer is spreading throughout his body.

The prognosis before surgery was bleak.  Now, one year after the operation, his only imminent prospect is death.

12.25

MAX

tape 26, page 6

After that operation, when they get the gut out of you, they - ah, still going? - we’re out of gut, you know - you’re gutless.  That’s what kids at school say ....oh, come on you’re a gutless bastard, you know.  Well, when there’s no good....not much guts there, that’s about what you are, you know.  How are you going to compete with this fella or this fella?  You know, you can’t compete and you don’t want to compete but the thing is .... you’re ah....you’re not even game anymore, you ah .....you’ve seen you’re time and so it’s ah......

13.04

NITSCHKE tape 30

                   page 12

OVERLAY HEAD WITH COTTAGE TO COME

When I first met Max it was in his little house, in his little cottage in Broken Hill and it was a fairly sad and fairly tragic situation that he was in.  He was a person who was immensely competent - a person who has always been able to look after himself, a bit of a loner, immensely proud of his abilities.

13.28

BACK TO SYNC.

He realised that the game was up really, as far as his own life was concerned, but he was all sort of struggling along in that kind of private way, and suffering a good deal.

13.20

VIEWS OF BROKEN HILL

13.58

v/o

Two months ago, Max Bell decided he’d had enough of life and Broken Hill.

He’d heard about the Territory’s euthanasia law when it was enacted and, a few weeks ago, he set about selling up.

His hardest decision was send his two cats and his dog, Patch, to the RSPCA to be put down....

14.19

MAX THOUGHT TRACK

“TRANSCRIPT 4” pages 7 & 8

They’re my family actually and they were my responsibility and I..I was fearful of going out.  See, I was getting these belts across the...right on top of the heart then...not so much now.  I was fearful of going out overnight and.... and they’d be stranded there.

Q.  Was it a tough day, the day that you put the animals down?

A.  Oh yes.  Yes it was a dreadful day, dreadful day, but it’s worse than pain.  It’s another kind of pain altogether.  It’s a..that is a mental pain - no two ways about it - but I have a strong mentality and I..I’m sure I could go almost go through  any .... I don’t think anything could close my...close my brain down.  No matter what,’cause I’d go through a procedure and then I’d ..I’d work at it - perhaps the organising side of it.

15.20

DRIVE OUT OF BROKEN HILL

TO COME

15.23

v/o

It was as much grit as organisation which got Max Bell on the road to Darwin.

A former taxi driver, he made the three thousand one hundred kilometre drive from Broken Hill in six days.

15.39

NITSCHKE

TAPE 30

PAGE 13

THOUGHT TRACK OVER DRIVE OUT OF BROKEN HILL

He set out in what would ave to be described as a critically ill situation.  A person who is unable to eat, a person who has extreme pain, a person who uses a number of techniques he has taught himself  to deal with that pain, a person who is watching his body withering away.

16.06

MAX THOUGHT TRACK - 4 BITS

“TRANSCRIPT 2” page 2

The car had a lot of power, so I thought.....I suppose I felt as though I was..er, blended with the car’s power.  It was doing the job, and er..I...seemed as it was a blend of my head and the car’s ability to roll.

“TRANSCRIPT 4” page 10

I just sat there and a lot of the time just fighting nausea all the time and I’m drinking, sipping the water.

“TRANSCRIPT 4” page 12

I didn’t eat much.  Bit of soup, maybe, at the most.

“TRANSCRIPT 4” page 11

I knocked meself a bit.  More than I probably realised.  When I look, look at it, I got the job done.  I got all the loose ends tied up again.

16.50

NITSCHKE SYNC tape 30

pages 14,15

He was certainly suffering from the journey of that nature, but he did it in a time which most healthy people would have trouble meeting, and he did it because it seemed to me he was driven by one thing, and that was the goal and the goal was to get to Darwin.  Darwin had become this kind of place, this destination, this journey - the most important journey of his life.

17.16

LEGAL CHALLENGE PRESSER

17.33

v/o

But Max Bell did not find the haven that he expected.

The first sign of trouble came the morning after he rolled into town:  a legal challenge to the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was announced at a press conference at Darwin’s Frontier Hotel.

It was only a fortnight before the law was to be effective.

Max Bell was basically told that he should have known better than to take for granted an act of the Territory parliament.

18.01

Dr. WAKE FROM PRESSER

Those who have pushed ahead with the July 1 start date have been unwise in doing that because it has been clear that this challenge would go ahead.  I say again that there are options other than killing patients available to everyong out there who, at the moment, is suffering.  The AMA doesn’t support suffering.

18.30

MAX BELL

“TRANSCRIPT 2” page 15.16

I’m not living - it’s just existing and er I don’t see the point.  I don’t see the point why we should have to, just because someone has a vested interest in something or other.  Why they should be able to say, well no, you’re gonna have to do the complete mile whether you like it or not, sonny, and if you cop a bit of pain along the way, well that’s too bad - we won’t feel it.  That’s virtually what they’re saying, isn’t it, in a nutshell?

Q.  Well, what they’re saying is that these days there’s this thing called palliative care.

A.  Yeah.

Q.  And that they can manage the pain and they can get you through.

A.  Fill you up with pills?  And give you morphine?  Is that living?  Would you say that was an alternative to having a nice long sleep?  Of course it’s not.  Any idiot could nut that out and, if the person who had wasn’t an idiot and had a first class brain, well what tricks is he playing?  What’s he on about?

19.43

PARLIAMENT INTERIOR

v/o

But, if Max Bell is outraged by the medical ethics, the political machinations are even more unsettling.

The euthanasia law was first voted on more than a year ago, but by-elections have sinced changed the make-up of the Territory assembly. 

If it was voted on today, the law would be unlikely to get up.

And the conservative CLP government has a completely new ministry.

20.10

SHANE STONE, CHIEF MINISTER AT PRESSER???

NT DAY PARADE???

Shane Stone has been Chief Minister since Marshall Perron’s retirement a year ago.

Before he got the top job, Stone was a member of the same coalition of doctors, churches, right to life and aboriginal groups which is challenging the law before the Northern Territory Supreme Court.

Stone’s position now is that he’s still opposed to the legislation, but honour-bound by Westminster tradition to promote it and fight the court challenge.

21.16

PRESS CONFERENCE

Tapes 102 & 105.  Page 7

I’m very clear in what I’m going to do.  I’m going to defend this legislation.

We live in a democratic system and that’s the way it is - I have been pilloried by people who say that I have changed my mind.  I have not changed my mind on the principle of euthanasia, but I accept that I have a higher responsibility, and so it’s not very easy for me.  But I have it very clear in my mind what my responsibilities are in this matter, and it is hard, yes.

21.45

CATHOLIC CHURCH SERVICE

21.55

v/o

The Catholic Church has vigorously lobbied Chief Minister Stone to follow his conscience as a Catholic. 

The head of the Catholic Church in Australia dispatched to Darwin a Melbourne bishop, who knew Stone from old, in an effort to turn him around.

But, while he’s publicly upholding the legislation, Stone seems privately to be backing those behind the court challenge.

22.31

INTERVIEW WITH TED COLLINS, CATHOLIC BISHOP

2nd tape of interview page2,3

Well, the ones that were against the Bill would be very, very delighted to think that there would be a challenge.  I think that would be correct.

Q.  Because that in some way let them off the hook?

A.  Well, yes.  Maybe that’s the only way the Bill can stop.

Q.  Is the Chief Minister, Shane Stone, one of those who has indicated to you that he welcomes the prospect of a legal challenge?

A.  Well, more or less, yes.

22.57

23.26

ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL

SERVICE

OPEN WITH SYNC ABOUT PRAYER FOR POLITICIANS

v/o

Across town, the Anglican Bishop has read a similar message from from conversation with Chief Minister Shane Stone:  that a successful court action would settle the question without causing political damage.

23.29

INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD

APPLEBY, ANGLICAN BISHOP

There are people within the CLP who have been hoping for a very long time that there would be a legal challenge and that that, in a sense, would get them off the hook.

Q.  Is the Chief Minister himself one who’s wished you luck on a legal challenge?

A.  Er, my reading of it is that the Chief Minister would be pleased that it’s being tested in this way.

Q.  What does that say then if his commitment is to getting the law to work?

A.  Well, that’s part of the mystery of it all.  Because, on the one hand we’ve got confused legislation, regulations, educational programs barely begun and all of that.  So if there was a real commitment to making it work, one would have expected that it would have been done a bit better, so we’re facing this very confusing situation.  Now, it may be that some people are wanting to create a situation that’s

confusing, inadequate and that may well create the right environment in which to move on the repeal question.  I mean that may be the thought in some persons’ minds.  My own view is that once euthanasia is practised here it will become even more difficult to stop it.

24.49

MAX MOVE INTO MOTEL

V/O

Max Bell had no idea of the political nuances when he set out for Darwin.

A week before the euthanasia law came into force he moved into a mote.  He had been staying with new aquaintances, but wanted more privacy.

He was expecting this to be his last accommodation stop.

But his health was fading further.  For the previous couple of days he’d been vomiting what little food he was able to swallow.

Max Bell would have welcomed death right now.

25.28

MAX LYING ON BED

Tape 26, pages 7,8

Oh yes, I’d do it now.  Yeah...no doubt about it.  I’d go to sleep now, my oath I would.  But it’s not only been the last couple of days.  It’s been the last seven weeks and then another ten months before that.  Waking up with a mouthful of shit and ...I’m still strong enough to, with Patchy my dog, go for a four mile hike the next day.  Knocked the..knocked me out.  I’ve seen the yellow curls.  You know, the yellow curls I mentioned today?  After that, that’s a sign to me that I’m almost ready to go out, you know.  Just some real curls, you know, in your eyes.  You can’t see past the curls and er.....that’s a sort of absolute fatigue.  The stars too.  You get a fighter that gets almost knocked out - he sees stars and he can’t see through the stars.

26.30

BOXING - BEST BOUT -

SHOW NITSCHKE AT TABLE

v/o

26.42

Dr. Philip Nitschke had his own problems that week.

The Australian Medical Association has about half the Territory’s working doctors in its membership, and it was advising them not to assist in euthanasia while the court challenge against the law remained unresolved.

The AMA was touting legal advice that, if the law was eventually overturned, doctors might be criminally or civilly liable if, in the meantime, they acceded to a patient’s wish to die.

The law says that a psychiatrist and two other doctors need to be involved in that process.

Nitschke thought he had a psychiatrist on side, but was having trouble finding a second doctor...

27.35

INTERVIEW WITH NITSCHKE

tape 29, pages 8,9

It’s not surprising that doctors have been understandably concerned about this issue and many are saying now well lets just wait and see what the court says.

Q.  But the AMA is saying that it’s come to that position from good legal advice.

A.  But it may have come...well, from equally good legal advice the idea of retrospectivity is a farce, as far as we can see it.  I mean, I think that’s a risk that I’m prepared to take...

28.01

INTERVIEW WITH WAKE

Page 9

I think he’s unwise.  I think he’s unwise and, if he does do it, then he needs to do it in the sure knowledge that the criminal code of the NT may be brought to bear on him.

Q.  What is your opinion of Dr. Nitschke?

A.  I think he’s unwise.  I don’t think I should say more than that.  I think that doctors who behave in this fashion towards terminally ill patients are unethical in that regard, not in all regards of course, but in that regard that it is unethical behaviour and I think that Dr. Nitschke has behaved ina very unwise fashion.

Q.  You don’t doubt his sincerity though, do you?

A.  No.

28.44

INTERVIEW WITH NITSCHKE

If you’ve got a set of prinicples, sooner or later you have to stand up and be counted.  I mean, sooner or later it’s crunch time and that’s what’s happening now.  We’ve got people in the Territory now who are asking for help, have every reason to believe that they have valid law on their side and they’re asking for help.  Now, you can just turn your back and say, well let’s be cautious.  Easy for me to be cautious.  But it’s not so easy to tell this particular group of people to just sit down and wait for another few weeks.

29.17

MAX AND NITSCHKE DRIP

SEQUENCE

v/o

Max Bell may not hold out that long anyway.  After only an afternoon in what he thought would be his final resting place, he had yet another relapse.

The next morning a palliative care nurse recommended he move to Darwin hospital.

29.33

NITSCHKE

VOX POP

IN GARAGE

He’s finding it very hard going and, of course, added into that is the uncertainly of this legal challenge, which he’s aware of, and, of course, his variability of his own medical stay, which is fluctuating but overwhelming very, very unstable and difficult.  We worry about whether he’s going to be strong enough to last through the so-called ‘cooling off’ period.

Q.  Has Max been desperate enough that he’s pressed you to ‘do the business’, as he says it, now, and not......

A.  He’s asked about that.  In fact he asked about it last night.  I mean, his situation is so serious and he’s suffering so much that he really does want to end his life, and so he’s saying things like ....if I could, I’d like you to end it now, but he’s also aware of the impossible situation that that really places me in.   It’s really out of deference to me that he’s not pursuing that line.

30.21

31.31

CHRIS WAKE AT HOSPITAL

v/o

As president of the Northern Territory branch of the AMA, Chris Wake is one of two plaintiffs in the court challenge to the euthanasia law.

London born, he’s been a GP in Darwin for nearly 20 years and is now as much a businessman as a doctor.

The AMA’s official policy is anti-euthanasia.  Palliative care, it says, is the appropriate treatment for terminal illness.

31.01

WAKE THOUGHT TRACK

Page 5

If your suffering becomes too much, then I will render you to a state of comfort, whatever that means, and I will nurse you.  I will, with your family, with the nurses and myself, I will nurse you for those last few days of your illness and you will die peacefully and I’ve become very good at that.

ENDS