Nationals MP Trevor Khan tabled the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill to New South Wales Upper House on September 21, 2017, saying it would allow people to end their own lives, with a number of proposed safeguards in place. Mr Khan said the proposed new laws would “provide an option for terminally ill patients whose deaths are imminent, the choice to end their severe pain, suffering or incapacity on their own terms. The bill fills a gap in the law of this state, where terminally ill patients do not currently have the ability to exercise such choice and sometimes die in unbelievable pain, suffering and stress”.
Mr Khan said the legislation has been developed by a cross-party committee in a bid to strip party politics from the issue. It would follow a model developed in the US state of Oregon, not the ‘voluntary euthanasia’ models available in some European countries.
(Mile Godfrey, The Daily Telegraph, September 21, 2017)