RSA Patron Dr Rodney Syme explains why for years he’s been challenging the law by helping patients end their lives at a time and with whom they choose when they are faced with intolerable suffering as a result of a terminal illness.

“Doctors have been helping patients to die for decades, if not centuries” he says. He admits to helping around 300 patients by providing them with Nembutal – the “green dream”. “Very effective,” he says, “for somebody in extreme distress.” The choice to take the Nembutal is always up to the patient; the doctor’s role is to relieve suffering.

Despite Victoria finally passing the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act late in 2017, opponents have not given up attempting to frustrate the clear preferences of more than three quarters of the population.

RSA Members and subscribers are urged to keep this in mind when they vote in November.