That was the message from ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, after watching his federal colleagues Luke Gosling and Alicia Payne introduce a bill to restore the right of the ACT Legislative Assembly to pass voluntary assisted dying laws.

He is right. Things are different.

Much has changed in the 25 years since a young conservative Liberal by the name of Kevin Andrews, with the support of then prime minister John Howard, convinced the Federal Parliament to back a bill to quash the Northern Territory's assisted dying regime and ban the territories from legislating on the subject in the future.

The Northern Territory hadn't just been the first Australian jurisdiction to pass right-to-die laws; it was the first in the world.

Mr Gosling on Monday suggested many Australians weren't ready for such laws in 1996.

The passage of assisted dying legislation in all six states since 2017, and the results of opinion poll after opinion poll, suggests they now are.

The other difference offering Mr Barr hope is the change of government.

Where Scott Morrison and the Coalition demonstrated outright contempt for the ACT and Northern Territory, the Albanese government is not just letting a debate occur - it's allowing it to be held in the first sitting fortnight of the new parliament.

So yes, things are different.

But will that matter when it comes to the final vote?

The arguments which underpinned Mr Andrews' private members' bill - including that only a rogue or immature parliament would ever legalise assisted dying - have either been eroded or destroyed in the past two decades.

On this basis, the ban should be lifted.

But that doesn't mean it will be.

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No sooner had the debate started in the House of Representatives on Monday afternoon had Mr Andrews' old arguments been revived, recast and modernised by the new guard of opponents, each desperate to make this debate about voluntary assisted dying rather than democratic rights.

Liberal-National MP Luke Howard read word-for-word a letter the Catholic Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn Christopher Prowse had last week sent to all MPs and senators, which said passing the bill would amount to the Commonwealth sanctioning the killing of its own citizens.

His colleague Andrew Wallace framed the bill as among the only opportunities federal parliamentarians would have to defend the "sanctity of life".

These paternalistic arguments pose the greatest threat to the Payne-Gosling bill.

Labor supporters know this.

It is why Mr Gosling and Ms Payne are appealing to all parliamentarians - including those Labor MPs who are inclined to vote no - to set aside their personal views on assisted dying, however strong they might be, and support the democratic rights of the citizens of the ACT and Northern Territory.

If they win that argument, the Andrews bill - passed more than 25 years ago - might not survive the next two months.