Ms PATTEN — On a happier note, I would like to talk about death. This week Victoria will make a historic move to legalise physician-assisted dying. I certainly made that one of my challenges to achieve in my term, and I mentioned this in my maiden speech, when I also paid homage to the late Peter Short, who was a campaigner on physician-assisted dying. My thoughts also go to my father-in-law, Jim Swan, who died a couple of months ago. He was a World War II veteran who offered up his life for this country, but sadly we were not able to give him the death that he wanted at the end of his life.
I would like to thank the hundreds of individuals and organisations who contributed to the end-of-life choices report. It is their work that has brought us to this historic stage today, where the toolbox that we will have for our end-of-life choices will be expanded in the light of the majority of Victorians’ desire for greater end-of-life choices.
