From their home on the shores of Lake Macquarie near Newcastle, former Labor MLA Mary Porter and her husband Ian De Landelles were more excited than most about the passing of the Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022 in Federal Parliament earlier this month.
The passing of the bill in the Senate late on a Thursday night, probably didn't, the next day, make for much conversation at the nearby Swansea RSL Club or distract fishermen away from trying to snag a bream or flathead in the vast waters of Lake Macquarie.
But for Mary, it was seismic. One of the biggest barriers to introducing voluntary assisted dying laws in the ACT was now gone.
"Both of us were so relieved and so excited. It was just like Christmas - 'Our Christmas present has arrived'," Mary, 80, said, with a laugh.
The bill didn't legalise voluntary assisted dying. But it gave back to the Assembly the ability to consider doing that and making a decision on it one way or the other.
"I've been watching all the developments in the other states, too, and thinking, 'Oh, I wish we - I still say 'we' - I wish the ACT was in that position to be able to even have that conversation and debate it and possibly pass it, because there's no guarantee at the end," Mary said, from her home this week.
"But I would think the population in Canberra is a very intelligent population and it's probably ready now to join that conversation in a positive way and for the Assembly to get it across the line. I've got a strong feeling that that's the case."
Mary Porter, a Labor Member for nearly 14 years until her retirement in 2016, spent much of her time in the Assembly trying to encourage a discussion around voluntary assisted dying laws.
The former nurse in 2013 undertook a study tour of European countries where the practice was allowed.
During the tour, she talked to people for and against voluntary euthanasia but also about other issues such as palliative care, to start a community conversation about end-of-life options at home in the ACT.
Mary now admits she feared she would "not live to see the day" when the ACT came even close to making its own laws about voluntary assisted dying.
Overcoming the 1997 Andrews Bill - the federal law that prevented the ACT and Northern from legislating on voluntary euthanasia - seemed impossible, at least under conservative governments.
"I didn't think it would happen," she said.
Mary's interest was shaped by her mother's "bad death" passing away painfully from cancer in a four-bed ward in a nursing home "without any dignity at all".
By contrast, Ian's father had a better death, administered palliative care in hospital with his family around him.
Mary says palliative care "definitely has a role".
"But for some people, they are in so much pain, even that is insufficient."
Mary says she was always careful not to advocate one way or the other for any end-of-life option when she was in the Assembly.
"I just wanted the debate to happen because I thought, 'If we don't have this healthy debate now, we won't be ready when we eventually get the opportunity'," she said.
"I used to say, 'Let's get the soil ready for the seed to grow the tree'. And that's what we did, we got the soil ready and we got the conversation going."
The ACT government believes it can have voluntary assisted dying laws in place by 2024.
Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne, who was mentored by Mary as a possible successor when Mary decided to retire, will be steering the process.
"When I knew I was going to retire, I decided to to mentor her when she was putting her hand up [for the Assembly], because I knew she could be a person who could take over a lot of the things I had a passion for," Mary said.
Mary says community consultation will now be key, so the Assembly takes the people "on this journey".
"So much work by so many people has really paid off and I'm grateful to be part of that process," she said.
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