PODCAST · news
Better Off Dead
by The Wheeler Centre
Andrew Denton investigates the stories, moral arguments and individuals woven into discussions about why good people are dying bad deaths in Australia.
Episodes
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Bonus Episode 14: Last Words: Voluntary Assisted Dying
Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying law came into effect in June 2019. The first of its kind in Australia and touted as the most conservative in the world, the passing of Victoria’s law was a watershed moment for end-of-life care in this country. More than eighteen months on, in April 2021, what...
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#13 Unintended Consequences
When Victoria’s VAD law was passed in 2017, it was touted by Premier Daniel Andrews as ‘the most conservative in the world’. This was true. Its 68 safeguards made it a far more daunting law for terminally ill people to access than similar laws in other countries. But was it too daunting? Much was...
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#12 A Cry For Help
Whether it is through the words of the pope, his representatives the bishops and archbishops, or its surrogates in the medical profession, the Catholic Church remains the most determined force against voluntary assisted dying in Australia. In 2020, The Vatican released its latest encyclical on...
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#11 The End of Life Lottery
The assisted dying debate in Australia has revealed two parallel universes. The conservative Christian universe, which believes our lives belong to God; that whatever happens at the end of life is part of His plan. And the other universe – embracing 75% of Australians (including a majority of...
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#10 We Who Walk Towards Death
At the heart of the political debate around voluntary assisted dying lies palliative care. On one side sits the argument that it can effectively deal with all pain and suffering, and that it should be made available to everyone before Assisted Dying is made legal. On the other, a recognition that…
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#9 The Light Under the Bushel
In September 2020, as Tasmania’s Upper House prepared to debate an Assisted Dying bill, an article appeared on the online publication Mercatornet. Above a picture showing a graph of a flatlining heartbeat superimposed over an elderly hand was a headline in big, bold letters: ‘Grandma took her…
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#8 The Good Samaritan
The key word in Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying law is the first one: ‘voluntary’. By law, any doctor, nurse, or other health professional who conscientiously objects can choose not to participate in a person’s request for voluntary assisted dying. But how does an institution balance its...
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#7 The ‘C’ Word
There are many firsts in Betty King’s life. First female prosecutor for the state of Victoria. First female prosecutor for the Commonwealth of Australia. First female silk in Victoria. Now another – first Chair of Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board. Reporting to parliament, the…
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#6 The Locked Box
Imagine turning up to work one day to discover flyers outside your office accusing you of being a ‘death peddler’ and an ‘Uber service for poison’. Professor Michael Dooley runs Victoria’s Statewide Pharmacy Service. When voluntary assisted dying became legal it was his job, and that of his team,...
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#5 I Choose Not to Suffer
So much was said during Victoria’s parliamentary debate about the people who would choose voluntary assisted dying, were it to be made legal. That they could not possibly know their own minds. “I do not believe that an individual who is facing such enormous pressure and stress is capable of…
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#4 Do No Harm
No group has done more to persuade politicians to oppose assisted dying in Australia over the last 20 years than doctors. Citing their Hippocratic Oath to ‘do no harm’, they argue that giving doctors the right to ‘kill’, instead of cure, will forever damage the doctor-patient relationship. What...
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#3 Lucky Phil
“Thou shalt not kill” - The Sixth Commandment Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying law was written to allow an eligible, terminally ill patient to drink a lethal medication to end their suffering; choosing to drink being considered the ultimate voluntary act. But the law allows, in exceptional...
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#2 The Fire or The Fall
Warning: This episode of Better Off Dead contains references to suicide and self-harm. These include discussions about how some terminally ill people have tried to end their lives in the absence of voluntary assisted dying laws. We are aware of the Mindframe guidelines on appropriate language...
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#1 The Belly of the Beast
Spurred by watching his own father die painfully, in 2015 Andrew Denton set out to investigate – why are good people being forced to die bad deaths? Five years later, Victoria is the first state in Australia to have passed a voluntary assisted dying law. In the first year of the law’s operation,...
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Season 2 Trailer
Andrew Denton investigates the stories behind Victoria’s landmark Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) law: Who seeks to use it, and why? Who are the doctors stepping forward to help them? And how does the church continue to resist a law it describes as ‘evil’? Co-produced by Go Gentle Australia and…
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#17 Why Do I Have to Go Through Hell to Get to Heaven?
20 years ago, four dying people were able to access the Northern Territory’s world-first law to help them die more mercifully, before the law itself was extinguished. By the end of 2016, over 100 million people on three continents will be able to access such laws – the most recent places to adopt...
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#16 Abandon Hope
Paul Russell — Photo: Supplied My search for the truth about assisted dying began when I was invited to attend the HOPE International Symposium in Adelaide, featuring anti-euthanasia speakers from around the world.* There, I heard dire warnings about what was happening in Belgium, the Netherlands...
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#15 Lawrie's Story
Of all the arguments against assisted dying, the most heartless I’ve heard is this: Suicide is legal. Why do you need assistance to do something that you can do yourself? Every time I hear that thought expressed (and I’ve heard it more than once while making this podcast), I’m astonished at the...
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#14 Australia's Dark Little Secret
The repeated call by opponents of assisted dying is that the elderly and the vulnerable must be protected from coercion. In this, they are right – and there are many safeguards built into existing laws overseas which do exactly that. But what of the elderly described in this episode by two of...
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#13 Now They're Killing Babies
Assisted dying has no more committed opponent than the Catholic Church. They have thrown resources, and the full weight of their political influence, against it wherever it has been proposed. That’s why the words of Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher – one of Australia’s most senior Catholic...
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#12 Velvet Ray
Ray Godbold is a palliative care nurse faced with terminal cancer – but he doesn’t want to die in palliative care. Robyn and Ray Godbold — Photo: Andrew Denton Ray knows what some doctors prefer not to admit. He knows that, even in palliative care, not everything can be taken care of; that a...
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#11 Whose life is it anyway?: palliative care in Australia, part 2
Associate Professor Richard Chye is the director of the Sacred Heart palliative care unit at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. A gifted physician and teacher, he is also a hugely influential figure in palliative care in Australia. Apart from being a member of various state and national committees,...
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#10 Neither hasten nor prolong death: palliative care in Australia, part 1
Speaking with doctors in Belgium, the Netherlands and Oregon, I’d learnt that in those places, palliative care and assisted dying are seen as things that go together – and assisting a patient to die may sometimes be the ultimate offer of help for those beyond the skills of even the most dedicated...
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#9 Why should one church decide for all of us? Death with dignity in Oregon
The success of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act – at 18 years, the world’s longest-running law of this kind – puts two things into sharp relief. Firstly, the increasingly desperate attempts of opponents to discredit it. Secondly, the truth they don’t want you to see – that this law works, and...
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#8 Darkness visible: Marjorie, Edith and Laura: Belgium, part 2
Shortly after arriving in Belgium, I learned of ‘Laura’ – a 24-year-old woman who had sought the right to be euthanised after years of unrelieved mental suffering. Immediately, I heard alarm bells. My gut reaction? A 24-year-old who’s not terminally ill? Surely there’s a point at which a society...
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#7 The killing fields of Belgium: Belgium, part 1
If there is an epicentre for anti-euthanasia sentiment, it’s Belgium – home to what are often described as the most liberal euthanasia laws in the world. Here, people of any age – even, in some circumstances, children – can be euthanised. Allegations are made of a euthanasia culture that has…
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#6 Once you start killing, you can't stop: the Netherlands, part 2
For those who hold out the Netherlands as a textbook case of a ‘slippery slope’, they see a law originally designed to help the terminally ill – but that has now ‘slipped’ to include those who aren’t. But the Dutch law wasn’t written to deal only with certain diseases; guided by doctors…
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#5 The keys to life and death in someone else's hands: the Netherlands, part 1
The Netherlands’ euthanasia laws are the longest-running in Europe. Surprisingly, the drive to create them didn’t come from politicians; it came from doctors. Recognising that, like doctors in many countries (including our own), they were already assisting people to die, they pushed for a law…
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#4 It can never be perfect, so why try and improve it?
Opponents of assisted dying in Australia want to leave things as they are, because of the worrying things they claim might happen if we did have a law. But what about the worrying things that actually are happening because we don’t have one? 'They find themselves often initially charged with…
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#3 The 80-year-old outlaw
According to Canadian anti-euthanasia campaigner Alex Schadenberg, Melbourne doctor Rodney Syme is a threat to society: a ‘cowboy’ and ‘the worst of the worst’. Why? Because for over a decade now, Syme has been publicly assisting terminally and chronically ill patients to die – despite the threat...
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#2 How dare you want to end your life: Liz's story
Liz is a dynamic 48 year-old businesswoman who’s dying of cancer. She wants to have a choice about how she dies because she’s been through palliative care. In her words: ‘They can’t control your pain, let me tell you. I’ve been there.’ Liz in her apartment with some of the equipment needed to…
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#1 The invasion of death
My name is Andrew Denton. I’m a writer and broadcaster who lives in Sydney, Australia. In October 2015, I delivered a public address arguing for an assisted dying law in my country. This podcast is the end result of that process. In it, you will hear the voices of those who I spoke to for my...
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Welcome
Introducing Better Off Dead – a new podcast from Andrew Denton and the Wheeler Centre. From early 2016, join us as Andrew investigates the stories, moral arguments and individuals woven into discussions about why good people are dying bad deaths in Australia. Subscribe in iTunes, or your…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Better Off Dead have?
Better Off Dead currently has 33 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Better Off Dead about?
Andrew Denton investigates the stories, moral arguments and individuals woven into discussions about why good people are dying bad deaths in Australia.
How often does Better Off Dead release new episodes?
Better Off Dead has 33 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Better Off Dead?
You can listen to Better Off Dead on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Better Off Dead?
Better Off Dead is created and hosted by The Wheeler Centre.
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