I agree I think we (ozzies) need to grow up and weed out the frozen minded religious adherents in our GOVT. It really is a mystery that a tribe of paedophiles have their way over people my age when it comes to our decision regarding our exit strategy . It's none of their God Dam'd
Business !

Religious believers will always be over-represented in politics, because the practitioners of religion and politics share certain core assumptions:

* Ideological convictions trump evidence
* Collective action trumps individual freedoms
* Moral outrage trumps rational argument
* Collective delusion trumps scientific investigation

And until the religious population drops to negligible levels -- or administration becomes a rational and purely mechanical discipline -- this overlap will prevail. Party politics is merely a more sophisticated way of deciding what God wants us to do.

A great article, thank you! Sadly we are up against the power and money of the Vatican on this one and to give them credit for one thing, they know how to lobby behind the scenes. So their power is far greater then the few people who actually agree with them.

Many politicians just won't touch this one, in case it costs them a few votes and to win the next election, every vote matters.

So our old people continue to suffer. Its time that we called a referendum on this topic, that would settle it once and for all.

Most people now do not believe in a God of any sort, those that do have been brainwashed as children Into their parents faith, and this will continue down the line, especially the Catholic and Islam faith, but all the rest of religions are just as bad. Having discussed VE with a Catholic member of parliament I came to the conclusion that his church upbringing will always get in the way of any decision in parliament as to what the wishes of his electorate may want, this is wrong, I want to end my life the way that I see fit, and not by the rules of some clown from a religious faith in Parliament.
I cannot envisage voting for Tony Abbot as Prime Minister at the next election, nor his off sider Christopher Pyne, both staunch Catholics, as the rules of that out of date church , except for child abuse, which seems to be cordoned, but mention the word VE and it conjures up immediately killing in their mind of the wrong sort, you know "though shall't not kill" except in war (condoned).
"Suffer the little children to come unto me" definitely OK by the Catholic priests for their own gratification, it is time all tax free religions were well and truly buried.

It's a bit hard to know whether to believe the ever-foundational 85% support figure or not. On one hand you would expect even more people to care that you don't suffer pain when near death, but what is really telling is that in all the newspaper articles where a poll is attached (such as http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/greens-try-to-overturn-ban-on-euthanasia-20121118-29kay.html#poll) the poll results *never* agree with the assertion.

A very good article with one very true paragraph:

<" Progress will be made when we have politicians who are prepared to examine the options of how a law permitting voluntary euthanasia can be made to work safely instead of taking the attitude "It can't be done." To do that, some of them will have to acknowledge that they were not elected to put the views of the church before the wishes of the community."

While I support anyone's right to end their life under strict conditions, I do worry about WHO will be actually giving the drugs to end their lives?

I'm assuming it would have to be their GP or specialist who writes up and gives the final drugs at a time of the patient's choosing?

What if neither of these doctors is comfortable with doing it?

Would they then have to find another doctor willing to euthanase them?
A stranger?
Would there then be just a few doctors willing to do it... an awful job...?