Contact the Media

The Government is Listening

The government pays monitoring companies to scan the talkback sessions looking for the mood of the electorate. So, send a 'letter to the editor' or phone your favourite radio talkback programme. Let others know how you feel.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor provide an avenue to make your views public. Make the community and policy makers aware of your opinions!

Six tips on writing letters to the editor:

1. Keep it short. 100-200 words is usually the absolute maximum.
2. Use simple language.
3. Relate what you say to a previous story (or letter) if possible.
4. Don't send it as an attachment. Make your letter the body of the email.
5. Include your name and address.
6. See some letters written by others appear below and right for inspiration...

Letters Written by Others

The Age, 21st December 2005

Pamela Bone’s moving piece about her battle with bone marrow cancer would have touched a great many of her readers as it did me. More than 70% of Victorians (Roy Morgan Research) agree with Pamela that legislation for the right to die at a time of one's own choosing, and with help if necessary, will and should come.

Current legislation lags significantly behind the will of the people but those most in need of such legislation cannot march down Spring street; they are too ill. We as the majority, must speak up!

Dr. Max Sutherland

Good Weekend, 9th Februrary 2002

I want to be able to talk about (euthanasia) to my doctors. I can relax a bit if I know there's a safety net. For me, it's about taking responsibility. I don't want the decision to be left to my family or to my doctors. And I don't want my family to have to look after me for years and years. For heaven's sake, if I don't want to be a vegetable in a bed, why should I have to be?

"Emma'' (a pseudonym), 28, who has multiple sclerosis.

The Age, 2nd April 2002

In the past decade more than 1300 Australians 75 or older took their own lives. Some were nearly 100 years old. All of them died alone. Most hanged themselves. The second most used method was firearms, then came poisoning by gas and other substances. While we hope that all our senior citizens would never feel a need to end their lives deliberately, those that do so should not have to resort to such violent methods.

Marshall Perron
Former chief minister of the Northern Territory

Radio Talkback

Sharing your views makes a difference!

More Letters Written by Others

The Age, 16h Jan 2006

Oh, that I could die like my dog! She lay peacefully in my arms while the vet injected. Never a whimper. Our law is kinder to all animals other than human.

Pauline Reilly, Airey's Inlet

The Age, 18th April 2005

Our right to choose when to die

Last week, following my experience of participating in presentation of submissions to the Senate Inquiry into the Criminal Code (Suicide-Related Material Offences) Bill 2005, which aims to further curtail information relating to voluntary euthanasia, I had a telephone call from an old friend, who told me that her husband, Paul, had just died.

Paul was 86. He was one of the most vital persons I have ever known. He had been a fighter pilot in World War II.

My wife and I first met him in Canberra, as members of the Canberra Aero Club in the 1960s.

When he was 80 and long after his retirement, Paul suffered a series of strokes, and after that was carefully and lovingly nursed by his wife at their home.

For years Paul had to live in a wheelchair.

Despite his many requests for some help to be able to die, Paul's doctors told him that there was nothing they could do in that regard and that they could only alleviate his pain and suffering.

I make no criticism of them in that regard.

His wife's message to me last week was that a few days ago Paul himself decided to do something to end his suffering.

During the last few days, he had drunk or eaten nothing - in effect, he had starved himself to death.

My wife tells me that her father had done the same. Australian statistics tell us that most elderly people who come to similar conclusions, and are able to do it, kill themselves not by starvation but by hanging. An even worse gruesome thought.

This bill before Federal Parliament has to be defeated and the existing law against voluntary euthanasia repealed, but there seems little chance of that with the ALP supporting what is now being done.

The sadness of it all for me is that I am about to enter my 80th year and if I should want to end my life, as Paul did, will I have to fly to Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands or Oregon in the United States, because I cannot get help to do it in Australia?

Kep Enderby, president, Voluntary Euthanasia Society of NSW, Broadway