NZ Parliament
National MP Judith Collins became emotional as she spoke in support of the End Of Life Choice Bill's second reading.
OPINION: Parliament was packed with MPs at the most recent member's night, with far more of them strolling around the corridors deep into the evening than usual.
That was partly because National was having a big party on the third floor, but far more important was the second reading of David Seymour's euthanasia bill, which ended up passing 70 to 50, well above the 61-vote threshold.
Hordes of Labour and National MPs bounced up and down in the chamber, attempting to get their moment of glory to rhapsodise on the bill.
Green co-leader Marama Davidson laid out her party's careful support for the bill. There was only one party that didn't speak on it, and didn't even bother sending more than a single MP to most of the debate.
Like with so much of contemporary politics, the fate of legalised euthanasia hinges on this party - New Zealand First.
Abigail Dougherty/Stuff
David Seymour now has to convince MPs not only to back euthanasia but to back a referendum on it.
NZ First have only promised their nine votes for the bill's third reading if a referendum is attached to it, a referendum that would likely be held at the next election.
Lose those nine votes and Seymour would have just 61 votes in support - meaning if he lost one more vote the law would be toast.
And you can be sure that at least one of the National and Labour MPs who voted it through this far would pull out with a margin that tight. (Not every NZ First vote would necessarily be removed if a referendum was taken off the table, but chats with the caucus suggest all but one or two would be.)
But because of a nightmare of a select committee process, Seymour cannot simply write a referendum into the bill.
He will need to pass an amendment in Parliament to get a referendum attached, once again securing more than 61 votes. That could be extremely tough.
The Prime Minister has already indicated she is not keen on a referendum, telling reporters on Monday she thought it was a decision best made by Parliament.
She is technically just one vote among 120, but likely a very influential one.
Many in the Government, who mostly supported the bill, will be thinking carefully about whether they really want to bite off a euthanasia referendum in 2020.
Euthanasia is an incredibly polarising issue likely to rile conservative voters already fired up about the cannabis referendum that is pencilled in and with changes to abortion law likely to be coming at around that time.
It's very hard to fight an effective election campaign when half of the media airtime is devoted to issues like these.
And despite the fact both of these referendums actually come from other parties, the public will likely associate this massive wave of social change with a Government who loves to talk up how much it is transforming the country.
This leaves a hard path for Seymour, who will want to convince supporters of the bill that they have to vote for the referendum in order to get euthanasia legalised at all.
But he might get some assistance from an unexpected place.
The group of MPs who are deeply against euthanasia have not yet decided how they will vote on the referendum question. Several I have spoken to see voting for it as a decent idea, as it basically gives them another line of defence against the law if it passes third reading.
What happens in an actual referendum is quite unclear. The polling right now suggests that legalised euthanasia would easily win a referendum, but some Otago University research also suggests that the more a voter knows about euthanasia the less supportive they become.
The anti-campaign is extremely well-resourced and passionate, so you can expect one hell of a fight.
Sunday Star Times
