Australian journalist Andrew Denton has launched a new campaign for assisted dying in Australia. Denton, a well-known radio and television personality, delivered an address to the Australian Press Club recently in which he called for rapid law reform: “To the politicians of South Australia and to those of Victoria, Tasmania and NSW, who can expect new Bills within the year – I urge you: Do your duty.”
Denton claimed that the failure to legalise euthanasia in the country was the result of a “subterranean” network of religious politicians and businessmen: “…on the questions that are most fundamental to how we live, love and die, religious belief trumps everything. This is the theocracy hidden inside our democracy.”
He also used the occasion to launch a pro-euthanasia lobby group Go Gentle Australia.