Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council | Second Reading Debate
12 November 2025
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan Region):
I rise to make a contribution to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Amendment Bill 2025. Legalise Cannabis support these amendments, and I would like to acknowledge and commend Minister Thomas for her work in bringing these amendments to the chamber. The VAD scheme has been operational now for five years.
This compassionate and well-regulated program has served over 2700 dying people, offering them relief from terrible suffering at the end of their life. It has also helped relieve them of associated emotional and mental anguish through having the knowledge that when they are no longer able to or prepared to prolong their physical suffering, they will be able to choose the time and the manner of their death.
That relief is also felt by family members and loved ones of the dying person. As anyone who has watched a loved one endure excruciating pain will confirm, they want nothing more than to see an end to that suffering and to see their loved one at peace.
The Victorian Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill introduced in 2017 was the first of its kind in Australia. Its introduction was fervently supported by its advocates and deeply feared by those who imagined the worst possible outcomes for society if the bill succeeded. Every clause of that bill was subject to the most rigorous interrogation in both houses during a gruelling debate which apparently totalled around 160 hours.
Understandably, the bill erred on the side of extreme caution, containing no less than 68 safeguards. None of the dire predictions that accompanied that first debate came to pass. This humane, modest and very safe scheme is strongly supported by Victorians, and indeed every jurisdiction in Australia bar one has since adopted its own voluntary assisted dying scheme.
Other states learned a great deal from our scheme and improved upon many aspects of it, and the five-year review has given the government the opportunity to examine other state schemes and to respond to stakeholder feedback in considering the Victorian scheme. Seeing the laws in practice has provided a good basis for improvements to our scheme.
The new amendments are modest in scope. There is nothing particularly radical, but they cautiously broaden access to the scheme and will hopefully further improve the experience for those people availing themselves of the relief that VAD can provide.
I would like to just talk for a minute about palliative care. The issue of access to palliative care was talked about a lot in the Assembly and to some degree here in the chamber, and there seems to be this theme around the idea that VAD will be promoted above palliative care by health professionals – that in removing the gag clause, doctors will only discuss VAD and not provide people with information on palliative care options – or that patients will feel compelled to opt for VAD over palliation. But let us be clear: it is not a binary choice. It is not one or the other. No-one – no-one – is denying the important role of palliation. In fact we desperately need to be investing more in palliative care services.
Many Victorians are unable to access adequate palliative care when it is needed, and this includes community palliative care services at home. This issue needs to be urgently addressed at both the state and the federal levels.
Most people approaching death are not seeking to accelerate death, and they do not take lightly the decision to end their lives. Palliation is central to the quality of remaining life. Palliative care can and does ameliorate suffering, but there comes a time when for some people it is simply not enough. At a certain point it becomes about the quality of one’s remaining time, one’s remaining life, not the quantity.
As one who has worked in the aged care sector prior to entering Parliament, I recognise that there is both an informal VAD as well as a formal VAD. Generally, palliative care providers will maximise the treatment to remove pain, and often they will err on the side of removing pain over what might be a conservative prescribing limit even if it potentially shortens a life. That is as it should be.
There is an inherent ambiguity in the palliation process which cannot be simply regulated by government. When the patient decides that palliation has reached its limit, there needs to be choice for that patient. They must be empowered. They must have the agency to make this most important choice: to continue palliation or to leave this life in a manner and at a time and place of their own choosing.
Surely as a society we can offer an appropriate ending to dying people, to allow them to go gently into that dark night. If we are a humane and a caring society, surely – surely – it is the last and best action that we can do for someone.
We will be supporting the Greens amendments. We are particularly supportive of the amendments that would address the dearth of VAD providers across the state.
There is an extremely limited pool of VAD practitioners, particularly in rural and regional Victoria, where the lack of local practitioners makes it very difficult for people to access the scheme. So the amendment to enable nurse practitioners to act as coordinating or consulting practitioners would be particularly welcomed in those areas. This is something that the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation supports as well.
Nurse practitioners already have a lot of experience in the VAD space. Nurse practitioners would not be the principal consulting practitioner but would work alongside an appropriately qualified doctor, as defined in the bill. On this subject, I would note the proposed amendment from Mr Galea to more accurately define what constitutes a health practitioner, and we will also be supporting that amendment when it is circulated.
The Greens amendment to change the minimum requirements for coordinating and consulting practitioners would similarly help to reduce barriers for people in rural and regional Victoria in accessing the scheme. Tasmania and South Australia allow any doctor with experience in the condition to be a coordinating and consulting practitioner, and of course by the time a person gets to the point of needing to access the scheme, they have already spent a lot of time with doctors who specialise in that particular disease, and there are already sufficient safeguards in this area.
Why wouldn’t, for example, a patient want their GP to be one of their consulting practitioners? They are most likely the practitioner the patient has had the most contact with throughout their illness, if not throughout their entire lives. People place great trust in their GPs and have strong relationships with them.
As well as having a limited pool of VAD providers in the regions, access to VAD is then often compounded by the rigid prognosis timeframe. We acknowledge that the bill extends that timeframe from six months to 12 months, but with all of the other eligibility requirements, including that the person has an illness that is incurable, advanced, progressing and terminal, is it really necessary to impose a strict timeframe?
Many clinicians are reluctant to provide an estimate of time remaining beyond days or weeks, and with a legally binding timeframe one can understand why they might err on the side of caution in their estimates, particularly if they fear breaking the law.
Thanks to Victoria’s groundbreaking legislation in 2019, voluntary assisted dying is an accepted end-of-life choice that people with terminal illness looking down the barrel of immense suffering can access. It has allowed thousands of Victorians to live and to die on their own terms – with dignity, with humanity and surrounded by the people they love.
The amendments proposed in the bill will reduce needless suffering and remove unnecessary obstacles to VAD access so that more people can have the option to end their lives in a dignified and respectful manner.
We saw an overwhelming number of members in the Assembly use their conscience vote to pass these important reforms. Even those who did not support the amendments could not have helped but be moved by the extraordinary courage of Emma Vulin, the member for Pakenham, who I acknowledge here today and who spoke about living with motor neurone disease, a progressive and terminal illness, and the solace she derives from knowing she can access VAD. She said:
Knowing that voluntary assisted dying is there means that I, and people like me, can spend less time fearing the end and enjoy the remainder of my life without worrying too much about what the end may look like. It means that if I reach a point where my suffering becomes unbearable, I can make a choice on my own terms of when and where I would like to die, surrounded by the people I love.
I also want to acknowledge Leader of the Opposition Brad Battin, who having previously voted against the bill in 2019, voted in support of the amendment after experiencing two of his friends dying from cancer. To quote Mr Battin:
” … it is about people … not politics … my position has changed on the facts of what I have done and what I have seen.”
I understand that the numbers are a lot tighter in the Council than they were in the other place, but I sincerely hope that hesitant Council members will similarly draw on their reserves of empathy and be swayed to do the right thing by all Victorians.
In researching the bill, I read many heartbreaking and courageous accounts of people who have been through the voluntary assisted dying journey. None of them – not one – wanted to die. No-one undervalued the precious days of their life. They appreciated every moment they had left, but they knew what was coming and they knew there would be a time when it was enough.
I want to quote Helen Andreoni, who was diagnosed with colon cancer and has written about her experience. She wrote:
‘I do not know how much time I have, no one does, I now realise. What matters most is the present.’
She also noted:
‘Pain, loss of control, indignity, these are not abstract thresholds. You know them when you live them. The difficulty lies in recognising when the situation becomes intolerable. I have learned to trust my own sense of what is enough.’
That is really what this is about: offering compassionate end-of-life care for when living becomes intolerable, for when it is enough and it is time to let go. I commend the bill to the house.
[Council divided on bill with amendments]
[Bill passed 26 votes to 14]
