The inherent dangers of the state of Victoria expanding its euthanasia laws are highlighted in this article by Dr. David Bennett.   

Our most carefree times of our lives are as babies, toddlers and young children because our needs are taken care of by those on whom we are dependent.  The art therefore of growing up is to wean ourselves off this dependence on others as we mature.  How successful we are in achieving this can often determine the overall effectiveness of our lives.  However, as people age, they potentially enter a cycle- or a recycle of dependence- due to the onset of physical decline and/or associated ill-health.  The factors which can affect our capacity to adapt to ageing or the onset of ill-health, can be fundamentally influenced by the ethical ethos which guides public health policy.

As a social democratic organisation, Social Action Australia (SAA) is therefore gravely concerned about recent moves in late 2025 by the government in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria to expand its existing euthanasia laws because these could adversely affect those who are now becoming dependent on health care professionals as they age and/or become sick.     Before detailing these proposed legal changes to euthanasia, it is first essential to overview the strategic context in which the Victorian government is operating.

Because euthanasia undermines the fundamental operating ethical principle that medical practioners do no harm, the approach of Victoria’s dominant Socialist Left (SL) faction within the state’s ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) has been to introduce euthanasia by degrees.  This strategic approach has been one where public assurances have been made by SL politicians that euthanasia (and assisted suicide) will occur in only exceptional circumstances where the patient is terminally ill. 

Therefore, when Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (the 2017 Act), which took effect in June 2019, was introduced, SL politicians re-assured the public that euthanasia or assisted suicide would only apply to the terminally. 

Having ‘got away’ with commencing this paradigm shift in public policy where treating health care workers (i.e. medical doctors and nurses) could kill their patients or ‘assist’ them to suicide, Victorian SL politicians are now looking to expand the availability of euthanasia in the state.  This is despite previous public assurances in 2017 by  SL state politicians that such changes would not occur. 

The proposed 2025 Victorian euthanasia laws would increase the life expectancy period to twelve months for terminally ill patients and remove the so-called ‘gag rule’ so that medical doctors can discuss with their patients the possibility of death being administered to them.  These mooted changes even go so far as to require medical doctors who have a conscientious objection, to canvas the option of having euthanasia.  

                                                                                                                                                                           The SL’s Incremental Approach to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

The overall effect of these proposed legal changes is to subtly but definitely shift Victoria’s health law regime away from preserving life to terminating life.  It is not surprising that Victoria is leading the way in Australia to expand euthanasia laws.  This is because university academics in that state have been at the forefront over the years in advocating a transition away from the health law paradigm that no harm  be done, primum non nocere. 

The strategy that therefore is being applied by Victoria’s SL is to again re-assure the public, as was first done in 2017, that the 2025 proposed changes to euthanasia law will be of a limited nature so that the public will be re-assured that they are not threatened.  However, given that the 2025 legislative amendments consequently constitute a breach of faith on the SL’s part, only the most naïve can now believe that these ‘reforms’ will not provide a future basis for euthanasia to be further expanded down the track. 

The SL’s sophistry regarding the expansion of Victorian Euthanasia law is also reflected by the utilisation of rhetoric such as ‘compassionate’ and ‘dignity’ to categorise these proposed legislative changes.  Such terminology conveys the impression that the interests of the patient will be preserved.  The success of this political strategy by the SL is therefore predicated upon the public believing that the proposed legislative changes are standalone reforms. 

However, the dilution and eventual future removal of legislative safeguards with regard to euthanasia, shift the power from the patient to the health care professional.  This is because the current law endows the patient with protective rights which apply to patients regardless of their socio-economic status.  This creeping transition away from the health care paradigm that practioners seek to preserve life will also mean that those who are not as well off will be threatened. 

                                                                                                                                                              Moving Away from the Palliative Care Paradigm

This will be because those who lack the capacity to afford private health care cover or first-class aged care could well be threatened if euthanasia laws in Victoria and Australia continues to expand to the extent that practioners will one day have the ‘right’ (sic) to terminate a life on the basis they believe it is appropriate to do so. 

It will also be socially unjust that only those with the financial means in the future will be able to access palliative care.  This form of care is provided to people with serious illnesses, which are often terminal, so as to ease their suffering and/or prolong their lives, if the patient so decides. 

The question therefore emerges as to why there is such a concerted push in Victoria to introduce euthanasia and assisted suicide?  The answer to this question is two-fold.  Firstly, as previously analysed in this article, Victoria has been the state in Australia where there has been a concerted push by humanities academics to move toward a pro-death culture concerning medical practice and the law. 

Secondly, and paradoxically, due to major scientific improvements in health care, people are now living longer so that they are becoming a financial and a resource ‘burden’ .  This is particularly the case in Victoria where due to the state’s perilous financial situation, the SL dominated state government is now looking to reduce the resource strain of providing care to the sick and the elderly by eventually transitioning toward open-slather euthanasia and assisted dying medical regime. 

Even those who are financially better-off are threatened by this creeping paradigm shift in Victoria away from palliative care if legal protections are further diluted in the future.  Consequently, medical practioners practicing in private hospitals or in expensive high care nursing homes, could be subject to external pressure from interested parties (such as relatives) to engineer the application of euthanasia. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The Political Tuberculosis

It is therefore with regret given the scope for these above cited scenarios to become realities, that due to the SL’s dominance the lower house of the Victorian Parliament, that the state government’s proposed expansionary changes to euthanasia laws could pass by the end of 2025.   The only hope for the potential future victims of euthanasia in Victoria is for members of that state’s upper house of parliament to vote down these proposed reforms on the basis that they realize that they themselves could one day well be victims of the transition away from the palliative care paradigm. 

Consequently, it is apt that the wisdom of the great Renaissance Florentine philosopher Nicola Machievelli (1469 to 1527) be cited at this juncture.  Machiavelli observed that political problems are akin to Tuberculosis, easy to cure in the early stages but near impossible in the late stages.  Similarly, the Victorian public will eventually discover that unless they awaken to the SL’s agenda of eventually introducing open slather euthanasia, they will regardless of their background all eventually be threatened, because as in the words of a now former Victorian premier, they have passed their ‘use by date’.

The following is a letter which Denise Cameron, the President of Pro-Life Victoria, wrote to the press before a bill was unfortunately passed by the Victorian Parliament outlawing protests outside the state’s abortion clinics.

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