Marshall Perron

Marshall Bruce Perron (5 February 1942— ) is a former Australian politician.

A member of the conservative Country Liberal Party, Perron served in the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory from its formation in 1974, and was Chief Minister from 1988 until his resignation in 1995. He is best remembered as architect of the campaign that put the Territory at the forefront of voluntary euthanasia law reform. In his own words to Andrew Denton in 2015:

"What I was proposing was if there are terminally ill patients who wish to end their suffering by accelerating inevitable death, and there are sympathetic doctors who are willing to help them die with dignity, then the law should not forbid it. It was that simple and I've always seen this issue clear as a bell. It's about the rights of an individual, a competent adult."

His private members’ bill Rights of the Terminally Ill passed into law in 1995 and made the Northern Territory the first jurisdiction in the world to explicitly legalise euthanasia, although it was overturned by the Federal Parliament of Australia less than a year after it came into force.

Perron continues to advocate for voluntary euthanasia, and is patron of the Northern Territory Voluntary Euthanasia Society. 

Denton, A. (Host). (2015). "Australia's Dark Little Secret" (Episode 15) [audio podcast episode]. In Better Off Dead. Thought Fox/The Wheeler Centre. https://www.gogentleaustralia.org.au/transcripts2#tab-14