Voluntary Assisted Dying

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:21): My question is to the Attorney-General regarding the VAD Day of Reflection. Will the Attorney-General inform the council about the recent Day of Reflection hosted by the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:21): I thank the honourable member for his question. It was a distinct honour to attend the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board's moving Day of Reflection recently, at the end of May. The pathway for voluntary assisted dying was made available to eligible South Australians in January 2023 and is now in its third year of operation. It has provided dignity and peace of mind to hundreds of people suffering from incurable conditions.

As the legislated reporting and analysing body, the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board held their inaugural Day of Reflection last year, which was repeated this year, where friends, family and care navigators of loved ones who had used the VAD process could come together and honour their loved ones and share in a unique reflection of the process.

Throughout the morning of this year's event, we had the absolute privilege of hearing some of the incredibly moving accounts from loved ones who had decided to end their suffering on their own terms via the voluntary assisted dying pathway. Those who were brave enough to share their story included the children of older parents who had been suffering chronic cancers, and husbands of late wives whose quality of life had deteriorated so rapidly from the terrible incurable diseases they had been afflicted by.

Aged persons sharing their experiences spoke of the total assurance that their loved ones had given them of their choice to follow the pathway of VAD, particularly at times where those family members were not always so similarly at ease with the thought of their loved one leaving this world. That was certainly one of the concerns that has been raised in every Australian jurisdiction: that people will have pressure put on them to use voluntary assisted dying. Certainly, the evidence suggests—and the views from that morning were—that once the decision was made by someone to use VAD it is their loved ones who often try to talk them out of it, for not wanting to lose their loved ones.

Particularly touching were the reflections of the final moments, where people described it as 'a beautiful death', which is a very rare thing to describe in an end-of-life experience. One particular man described the role of VAD care navigators who, on the morning the substance was used in hospital, had organised a piano and a violin to play outside the hospital room where the man and the woman got married, finally, before she passed away. This is the remarkable work that VAD care navigators and those who support families—like liaison nurse Mandy Kocher and medical practitioner Dr Laureen Lawlor-Smith—do to support clients.

I would like to take this opportunity particularly to pay tribute to Associate Professor Melanie Turner, the Presiding Member of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board, and to the rest of the review board, including our former colleague the Hon. John Dawkins, for organising such a special event and for the ongoing work to ensure voluntary assisted dying remains a smooth and accessible pathway for South Australians.