At last week’s ALP national conference, delegates changed Labor’s platform to support removing federal barriers to voluntary assisted dying care, including telehealth. They also guaranteed Labor parliamentarians a conscience vote on VAD.

On Sunday, Anthony Albanese said he remained personally unconvinced about telehealth. That cabinet would decide whether the issue reached the floor of the parliament or not. He fears telehealth could be misused or undermine confidence in the system.

The prime minister is entitled to that view. It’s not a view, however, shared by a majority of his party.

And a conscience vote that never reaches parliament is no conscience vote at all. The PM needs to bring on this debate and not stand in its way.

The vote in question is whether a commonwealth criminal law enacted in 2005 should continue to obstruct medical care authorised under state and territory laws many years later.

That 2005 law made it an offence to use a carriage service – phone, email, video conferencing – to send “suicide-related material”. Its target was harmful online material and people encouraging others to take their own lives.

The provisions were never intended to apply to VAD. In 2023, the Melbourne GP Nick Carr tested this by asking the federal court to determine whether “suicide” in those provisions included the lawful, medical process of VAD.

Even though state VAD laws explicitly say VAD is not suicide, the commonwealth argued that........

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