- LETTER TO MR KEVIN RUDD MP 27/12/06 (contribution from a reader)-

Mr Kevin Rudd MP
Leader of the Opposition
Parliament House
Canberra
A.C.T. 2600

Dear Mr Rudd

As a disaffected traditional Labor supporter and having initially viewed the repeated Compass Program on A. B. C. – T.V. dated 17th December 2006 Re ; “Rudd and the God Factor,” thus motivated me to belatedly correspond as set out below.

During your Compass Program interview and in retrospect, a flash-back shows you in 1994 stating how you had a long-standing personal policy not to publicity discuss your religious faith which would be generally considered a correct and proper position to adopt on such a private issue and with which most people would agree. As a secular person myself, I harbor strong convictions that there be a separation of powers between the State and religion and predictably enough, along with a lot of other Labor supporters I took umbrage at your pious zeal of communion to engage religion with the politics of government. The one respectful revelation to come out of the Compass program in my opinion, was the overt praiseworthy stated position by Carmen Lawrence in her staunch majority supported opposition to church and State involvement, which in the past has proven devious and to which history will attest.

With reference to your very public religious posturing and whilst all government systems were founded upon social norms and moral beliefs, a secular government’s legitimacy and authority is derived from the people, not from any religious institution. The separation of the two both guarantees religion the right to exist without government interference and at the same time insures the integrity of the democratic system by keeping it free from the influences of religious pressure groups. It is one of the cornerstones of a strong and functioning democracy.

By embedding Christian values or the values of any other religion into the political process will not solve the many problems facing Australia , in fact on the contrary and Labor would do well to give a voice to reality. As we are constantly seeing religion misrepresenting scientific enlightenment and majority supported public opinion issues, dictates that Labor needs to be self-effacing by rethinking its position and adopt a more bolder, over the horizon approach in developing more liberating policies.

In playing the insightful analyst and in order to address the vagaries of past indecisive politics, Labor must formulate contemporary policies and adopt an activist national vision that encapsulates not only their lost supporters but also the constituents of other parties.

With an eye on social justice issues, one such majority supported social issue that in reality attracts approximately 70 – 80% upwards of national support is that of self-determination where end of life decisions are concerned, which should be beyond political debate and be an inalienable civil right for all citizens.

In amplifying this, surely it is now time to debunk the outdated archaic Hippocratic principal that erroneously upholds the blind faith cruel sanctity of life dogma as being more important than the psychical sole and mind quality of life.

In this human rights conscious era and on a cognitive level, what should be factored into the equation is the human dignity aspect of “what’s best for the patient and to empathically listen to what the patient wants” including respect for confidentially between doctor and patient relationship. Over the past ten years, Labor with its culture of in-difference and political inflexibility, for me has gone about as far it can go. Hitherto and during this period, Labor’s hierarchy has represented a betrayal of its supporters which I believe has federally weakened Labors political power base, thus resulting in my long-standing allegiance being hard to sustain.

Further on the subject of this important issue and with Australia now a secular society, open-minded people require freedom from backward religious repression. In saying this I believe that it would be electorally preferable and generally more appealing for Labor organizationally, to distance itself from the interfering suspect influences of orthodoxies. This in turn would mean that instead of Labor timidly shrinking from what is proper and expected, they could instead, coherently advance their internally ignored majority public supported, current valid Voluntary Euthanasia Policy as upheld at past strong Party grass roots level on to their policy platform.


Somewhere every day somebody is born and so dies, its nature’s paradox, but the victims of unrelenting suffering become the casualties of cruel political indifference and one may justifiably ask, what has religion done?, to elevate personal suffering which is an assault on the senses of all compassionate people. Instead of capitulating to the influence of inward looking sanctity of life religious dogma, with the only right being “the right to life and the obligatory right to suffer” I know in my sole, that this type of dehumanizing, whole of life doctrine is very wrong.

Today it’s a fact that there are many irreversible ill people whose lives are not worth living and who would rather be dead. However via the lucrative dying industry, they are being forced to endure to the cruel very end against their will when all they really want is to be medically assisted to die. To promote a hypothetical ambiguous situation, for instance, a young woman may legally destroy a healthy embryo growing in her body via an abortion. However if she has a terrible incurable disease, such as bone cancer for example, that dooms her to a tortuous death with unrelenting pain, paradoxically she legally can do nothing by way of a legislated option that would provide her with a merciful choice to end her own suffering.

To engage with life is to engage with death and each of us should have the prerogative to autonomously decide, what makes life tolerable or not worth living. When all alone in a palliative care hospital ward or nursing home, possibly surrounded by strangers, morphine addicted and on chemotherapy in the false hope of extending natural life beyond natures normal process and with no chance of recovery and nothing to come back to, then in our hour of need the right to choose to die with dignity as an option becomes a necessary freedom. The most striking thing about our times is how successful our politicians are at prolonging suffering and unwanted existence, rather than provide a legislated, more merciful path to the same unnecessary drawn out cruel end. In the United States , since 1994, Oregon has allowed doctors to prescribe a lethal medical prescription via the introduced of the, “Death With Dignity Act” whereupon terminally ill people can request and fulfill a prescription to self administer at a time of their choosing, thus excluding direct doctor participation which by all reports has worked well since its inception.

Along with the Netherlands , Belgium and Oregon (US) it was with well reasoned humanitarianism that the progressive liberal thinking small country of Switzerland decriminalized its punitive Assisted Suicide Law in1937, in fact the year I was born 69 years ago. During this time span and contrary to common misconceptions and falsehoods espoused by some misguided minority sectarian and right to life groups, Switzerland reports that there has been no cited cases of criminality and with the application of hindsight, this welcomed caring social change in Swiss Law has been overwhelming popular with its citizens.

With the passing of this extended time frame, Labor, in representing past governments of reform would have access to a wealth of quantitative data to draw upon in the formulation of overdue legislative change to our draconian Assisted Suicide Criminal Code.

It was Edmond Burke who in 1780 made the following statement :- “Bad Laws are the worst kind of tyranny” and when confronted with archaic religious prejudices that discriminate against the dying, then his words are as valid today as when first quoted

To conclude, this brings me to say that to deny the Australian people in to-days contemporary society, the right to access Assisted Suicide under the guise of religious authority is to deny ones freedom of religious expression in our society.

The above and attached is for both yours and your political colleague’s consideration and I trust that this important compassionate matter receives the seriousness it deserves.

It is in anticipation that I await a reply at your earliest convenience.


Yours truly

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