Voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is currently lawful in all Australian states and will be lawful in the Australian Capital Territory from November 2025. A Report published by an Independent Expert Advisory Panel has recommended that VAD laws be introduced in the Northern Territory. VAD laws permit adults with…
Voluntary assisted dying is lawful in all Australian states. This allows terminally ill adults who are suffering and have decision-making capacity to choose to receive help to die. Victoria’s law was the first, coming into effect in 2019. New South Wales was the last state, with its voluntary…
More and more countries are legalising voluntary assisted dying. This lets a doctor, or sometimes a nurse practitioner, give life-ending medication to an eligible person who requests it. As of 2023, 282 million people lived in regions where voluntary assisted dying is legal. Jurisdictions such as the Netherlands,…
Western Australia, the second jurisdiction to enact voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws, has undertaken its first review of its VAD system since it came into effect in July 2021. Professor Lindy Willmott, Professor Ben White and Casey Haining were engaged by the Western Australian Department of Health to…
Australian voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws are very similar, but how VAD is implemented by each state and territory can make a significant difference. Recently published research by Ben White, Amanda Ward, Rachel Feeney, Laura Ley Greaves and Lindy Willmott examines how the VAD system has been working…
QUT’s Australian Centre for Health Law Research is seeking to appoint a new Postdoctoral Research Fellow for a 3-year appointment. The Postdoctoral Research Fellow will work with Professors Ben White and Lindy Willmott on a range of research projects about voluntary assisted dying and other aspects of end-of-life decision-making. The position is full-time, but part-time applications…
The project, Assessing the operation of voluntary assisted dying laws in Australia, has been awarded $392,910 from the ARC Linkage Projects grant round. Lead chief investigators Professors Ben White and Lindy Willmott from QUT’s Australian Centre for Health Law Research said the project would conduct the first national…
Dementia is the second leading cause of death for Australians aged over 65. More than 421,000 Australians currently live with dementia and this figure is expected to almost double in the next 30 years. There is ongoing public discussion about whether dementia should be a qualifying illness under Australian voluntary assisted dying laws. Voluntary…
From today (28 November 2023), eligible people in New South Wales can ask for voluntary assisted dying. Casey Haining, Ben White, Katrine Del Villar and Lindy Willmott, members of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research (ACHLR) have published an article in The Conversation explaining the eligibility requirements…
A new podcast series on Australia’s voluntary assisted dying laws (VAD) that aims to address public confusion about eligibility, process and access to VAD has been launched. The series is produced by PhD researchers Sinead Prince (pictured, left) and Ruthie Jeanneret (pictured, right), from the Australian Centre for…
