There were a lot of happy people mid-July when Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission announced another investigation into the actions of the state’s once (and possibly future) deputy premier Jackie Trad. 

It was only last May that Trad was forced to resign as deputy when the CCC announced it was investigating her interference in the selection of a headmaster for a school in her inner Brisbane city electorate of South Brisbane. In 2019, the CCC investigated a related family purchase of an investment property near to future railway station for Brisbane’s under-construction, cross river rail line. While the CCC found nothing untoward in that referral, the LNP were obviously after the trifecta and their energies have been suitably rewarded.   

Ms Trad’s electorate of South Brisbane has, under her representation become so left-wing that pundits believe she will lose it in October to a left-wing Greens candidate: #metoo; #BLM #Climate. 

From Trad’s point of view that must be a bitter pill. After all, she has given the wokest of communities everything their inner-city wokeness could desire; so watching a Green MP devour her legacy as dessert must be extremely painful for her. 

Always one for a fight, however, Trad declared, not only will she contest the seat, but also that she has a policy that is so woke, so left-wing, so dumb, that her electorate will drink it down like medicine.

Responding to the LNP’s latest CCC complaint she declared that The LNP “are clearly possessed with political point-scoring and have absolutely no interest in helping Queensland through the COVID-19 pandemic health crisis.”

Now, Trad is a backbencher, but that didn’t stop her from proving that she determines ALP policy. In the middle of a pandemic and when the Premier was enjoying the glow of no COVID-19 deaths, ALP, back-bencher Trad declared that the people of Queensland would have the right to die and that the election would be fought on the policy of what is euphemistically called in Victoria, Voluntary Assisted Dying, or VAD.  

The irony is delicious. People are being prevented from coming to Queensland in case they bring the virus and kill people; all the while Jackie is promoting a means for people to be killed by other people. You would think in a well-organised party, the two women who want to run the state would co-ordinate better. 

To ensure that it gets the best possible policy, the government referred the matter to the Queensland Law Reform Commission who, in turn, called for submissions from the public, from which they will choose what they think embodies ’best practice’. 

Personally, a more profitable approach would be to make the various Commissioners explain their personal views before they choose ‘best practice.’ It’s a bit late for that now. The public can be assured that the QLRC will act impartially between right and wrong ‘best practice.’ 

Historically, the moral objection to suicide – which includes voluntary assisted suicide – has always been based on the fact that your life was a gift from your parents who received it from their parents all the way back in time to those first parents. (LGBTIQWE people take note: those first parents had to be a biological man and a woman – you know, penis and vagina positive). Because life is not your own, you hold it on trust for another generation, with a duty to preserve it so that you can improve your powers and use your gift to improve the lives of others. 

While I accept the strength of this moral imperative for everyone, my real concern is for the damage that will result from VAD on those members of the medical profession who take an oath not to harm their patients. Doctors, given the opportunity, will rationalise the meaning of ‘harm’ in order to promote ending pain and life. Sophistry will then justify the ending of another human’s life. But the simple fact is that doctors will have to kill human beings and I for one wouldn’t want to be treated by a doctor who was a known killer. 

You can bet your life, the government will not name the men and women the medical practitioners who will specialise in the taking of life and I doubt there will be a designated royal college (perhaps Royal Australian College of Euthanasists). 

At the moment, some medical practitioners do take patient lives, but in fairness, it isn’t deliberate, just accidental or negligent. My concern, however, is the corruption of the medical profession’s oath that VAD will cause for it is a contradiction of that oath. 

The purpose of the medical art is the repair and restoration of the powers of the human body. It is not the taking of human life. With that in mind and knowing that Jackie Trad and her followers in the ALP don’t give a tinker’s cuss about human life if it means a vote, I want to suggest to the QLRC that it recommend that the implementation of any VAD legislation be entrusted to authorised veterinarians. 

This suggestion has much to recommend it; the most compelling reason is that veterinarians have extensive experience at euthanasing/putting down/putting to sleep a wide variety of animals. Their skill at killing animals makes them the ideal servant for killing human beings. Further, given that the people desiring the service intend to throw their lives away anyway, there can be no logical or reasonable objection to the idea of entrusting this impious act to the people who dispose of worthless cats, dogs, horses and guinea pigs, etc.

It would just be another day at the office.

Dr David Long is a retired solicitor and economist.

Illustration: jackietrad.com.au.