Key Facts:
- Founder of Go Gentle Australia delivers National Press Club address 10 years after launching national campaign for VAD laws
- Legislation in every state and territory represents a profound shift in both law and medical culture. Thousands of Australians have now accessed VAD
- New Research Fund to investigate unresolved issues such as VAD access for people with dementia and obstruction of the VAD choice
Canberra, 7 October – Ten years after launching Go Gentle Australia at the National Press Club (NPC), founder Andrew Denton has returned to mark a transformation in end-of-life care and warn that the work of voluntary assisted dying reform is far from finished.
When Denton first called for change in 2016, more than 50 attempts to pass voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws in Australian parliaments had failed. Today, every state and territory has passed legislation allowing eligible terminally ill people to seek medical assistance to die.
“Back then, it seemed impossible,” Denton said. Yet over the following decade, sustained public advocacy and parliamentary reform transformed VAD from a politically contentious proposal into a legal end-of-life option across Australia.
Denton told the National Press Club the reforms represented a profound shift in both law and medical culture. At least 10,000 Australians have now accessed VAD, while many of the fears raised before legalisation – including that palliative care would be weakened or vulnerable people would be coerced – had not materialised.
But significant barriers remain.
Among the most pressing is obstruction by hospitals and aged care providers that object to VAD. Denton described distressing cases where seriously ill patients had been required to leave hospitals for assessments, prevented from receiving VAD care on site, or forced to choose between remaining in a facility for their medical care or continuing their VAD application.
Go Gentle research into aged care found only seven of 70 major providers offered residents both comprehensive information and full access to VAD.
Denton called for stronger protections to ensure institutions that conscientiously object do not prevent patients from exercising their legal rights, including allowing external VAD practitioners to enter hospitals and providing neutral spaces where assessments and other parts of the process can take place.
He also highlighted one of the most difficult questions facing VAD policy: whether people diagnosed with dementia should ever be able to access assisted dying.
Currently, Australian VAD laws require a person to retain decision-making capacity throughout the process, effectively excluding people once dementia has progressed beyond a certain point.
“Ethically, medically, legally and politically this is as complex as it gets,” Denton said. “Saying ‘too hard’ is not an option.”
To help address these and other unresolved issues, Denton announced the establishment of the Go Gentle VAD Research Fund, designed to produce evidence that can drive policy reform, advocacy and education.
Its first project will examine VAD practitioners’ attitudes towards access for people with dementia and the safeguards that would be required. A second project will investigate institutional obstruction, including where it occurs and how it affects patients.
“The research it enables will be chosen specifically for its ability to drive change, through evidence, advocacy, and education,” Denton said.
After a decade spent securing VAD laws across Australia, Go Gentle’s next task is ensuring those laws deliver fair and meaningful access.
The goal, Denton said, remains giving every Australian “the chance of a good death” and “the choice not to suffer”.
About us:
Go Gentle was founded by Andrew Denton in 2016. We are a national charity that supports choice at the end of life, including the option of voluntary assisted dying. We have been instrumental in passing voluntary assisted dying laws in all six states, the ACT and the Northern Territory and are now focused on supporting improvements to VAD care.
