The swift expansion of euthanasia law in Australia continues as the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has reported its first euthanasia deaths, showing that the territory appears on track to have the highest proportion of assisted deaths in its first year among all jurisdictions in the world with their own assisted death laws.
ACT’s assisted death legislation, the most recent assisted death law to begin operating in Australia, is the most expansive assisted death legislation in Australia, and one of the most extreme in the world. It is the only scheme currently operating in Australia with no fixed time within which an applicant must be expected to die. It also sets no minimum waiting period between key steps, meaning that a person could request euthanasia in the morning and be dead by the afternoon.
“Slippery slope” expansion of law began just one day after the law passed
While in other jurisdictions, politicians sponsoring assisted-death laws have focused heavily on claims that their proposed legislation is the strictest or very restrictive, ACT campaigners did the opposite, boasting on the day assisted dying was implemented that it was the “most progressive” assisted suicide model in Australia.
Astonishingly, just one day after the legislation had passed, the expansion of the law was put in motion, with the Legislative Assembly voting 16-7 in support of a motion calling on the Government to expand the law to introduce euthanasia for individuals incapable of consent at the point of death via “advance requests”.
On track for highest percentage of deaths in the world at year one, three times the percentage at year one in Canada
The ACT’s first report records 57 deaths following administration of a lethal substance between 3 November 2025 and 30 June 2026.
Using the ACT’s 2025 registered deaths total adjusted to the same eight-month period assuming deaths are evenly distributed throughout the year, 57 deaths is equivalent to around 3.5% of estimated deaths from all causes over that period.
If the proportion of deaths from euthanasia and assisted suicide remained at this level through to the end of the law’s first year of operation, the ACT would have recorded the highest percentage of deaths from euthanasia and assisted suicide in the world at year one among all jurisdictions in the world with their own assisted death laws.
That would be more than three times the share recorded in Canada, where assisted deaths accounted for around 1% of all deaths in 2017, the first full calendar year after federal legalisation, based on Statistics Canada’s death figures.
Canada is widely regarded as having one of the most extreme assisted death laws in the world.
Moves to expand law
The ACT Voluntary Assisted Dying Oversight Board is chaired by Darlene Cox, who had a track record of being an advocate for assisted death laws and actively campaigned for expanding the assisted suicide law prior to taking the position as chair.
Before the law passed, Cox signed two submissions on assisted death as executive director of the Health Care Consumers’ Association. The first submission said eligibility should “prioritise access over safeguards”. The second broadly backed the Bill and suggested the Government introduce a more expansive law.
After her appointment as chair, Cox personally called assisted death as the “ultimate demonstration of consumer empowerment”.
Currently, some parts of the assisted death process must take place in person because of federal restrictions on what can be discussed remotely.
In its first oversight report, the Board urged the ACT Government to press the Australian Parliament to lift federal restrictions on telehealth assisted deaths. If this change to the law that they are lobbying to be made goes ahead, an assisted death could involve a video call or a phone call for all stages of the assessment for assisted suicide. This could make coercion far harder to detect.
Furthermore, on the first anniversary of its introduction, the Government is considering introducing advance requests for people to end their lives when they are no longer capable of consent.
These so-called “advance requests” would mean that people may have their lives ended by euthanasia who, at the point of administration of the fatal drugs, cannot give their consent to it.
Missing data and no prognsosis limits
In addition to calls to expand assisted suicide and euthanasia further, the report reveals, between 3 November 2025 and 30 June 2026 53 people died of euthanasia and 4 people died by assisted suicide.
A patient died only two days after their initial request. The ACT has no minimum waiting period between key steps in the process. In cases of self-administration, the report notes that this data is not routinely collected, so the time between administration and death could be far higher.
In one case in Oregon, the time between self-administration and death was more than five days.
One patient took more than two hours to die following the administration of lethal drugs and in 2 cases the amount of time between taking the lethal drug and death was unknown
In the 53 cases of euthanasia, there were three reported instances of complications, including “other complications” where the details were not listed, and six cases in which it was unknown whether complications had occurred.
A practitioner of euthanasia describes the act of ending the life of their patient(s) as “undeniably sacred”.
The report records 65 instances of the drugs being dispensed and 57 deaths following administration. This means that there could be at least eight dispensed lethal drugs still in the community.
There were 13 cases of non-compliance with the assisted dying law identified in only eight months.
Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia
In addition to the ACT assisted dying report, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia have also recently released their annual reports.
For the year 2025-26, assisted deaths in Queensland accounted for approximately 3% of all deaths in Queensland in 2025-26. This is the highest proportion for any state in Australia at year three and the highest proportion of deaths resulting from assisted deaths at year three among all jurisdictions in the world with their own assisted death laws.
The proportion of assisted deaths has even outstripped Canada at year three, which previously held the record for the highest percentage of deaths from assisted suicide at year three, and is widely regarded as having one of the most extreme assisted death laws in the world.
This will likely get much worse if the law is expanded and safeguards are removed in Queensland, as is being called for by assisted death campaigners and astonishingly by the very Review Board tasked with ensuring the law and its purported safeguards operate properly.
There were a total of 1,082 deaths by euthanasia and assisted suicide in Queensland in 2025-26, a 36.44% increase from the first full year of operation in 2023-24, when there were 793 deaths. Of these, 836 were euthanasia deaths, an increase of 57.14% from 532 in 2023-24.
Despite these increases, the Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board has called for further expansion of the law, recommending the removal of the requirement for an in-person consultation and the introduction of telehealth for all stages of the assisted dying process. The Board has also recommended considering expanding eligibility criteria to include people with dementia.
Victoria has seen a 400% increase in cases of euthanasia over five years. According to the latest annual report, there were 140 euthanasia deaths in 2025-26, a 59.09% increase from 88 the previous year. Assisted deaths accounted for 1.1% of all deaths in Victoria, almost four times higher than the first year of operation in 2019-20, when they accounted for 0.3%.
A significant expansion of assisted suicide and euthanasia legislation is set to take place in Victoria in 2027. The changes include doubling the prognosis limit from six to twelve months for all conditions, allowing doctors to raise the possibility of assisted suicide or euthanasia with patients unprompted, and reducing the waiting period between the first and final requests from nine days to five days.
Western Australia has seen a 243% increase in euthanasia deaths over four years, rising from 148 in 2021-22 to 508 in 2025-26.
A total of 541 people ended their lives by euthanasia or assisted suicide in 2025-26, accounting for approximately 2.9% of all deaths in the state. This is the second-highest proportion in the world at year five of the operation of an assisted dying law, behind Canada.
The outgoing Chair of Western Australia’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Board acknowledged that activity across the assisted death service was “more than 10 times higher than predicted at implementation”.
Western Australia’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Board has recommended reviewing the existing six-month prognosis requirement, including consideration of extending or removing time-to-death limits, and removing restrictions affecting telehealth.
Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan, Chief Executive of Right To Life UK, said “If the proportion of deaths from euthanasia and assisted suicide remained at this level through to the end of the law’s first year of operation, the ACT would have recorded the highest percentage of deaths from euthanasia and assisted suicide in the world at year one among all jurisdictions in the world with their own assisted death laws”.
“That would be more than three times the share recorded in Canada, widely regarded as having one of the most extreme assisted death laws in the world, where assisted deaths accounted for around 1% in the first full calendar year after federal legalisation”
“This will likely get much worse if the law is expanded and safeguards are removed in ACT, as is being called for by assisted death campaigners and astonishingly by the very Oversight Board tasked with ensuring the law and its purported safeguards operate properly”.
“We are calling on ACT’s Health Minister, Dr Marisa Paterson, to do everything she can to prevent further expansion of this already extremely broad law and to commission an urgent independent inquiry into ACT’s assisted suicide and euthanasia system, including whether claimed safeguards in current legislation are protecting vulnerable people in practice”.
Dr Gregory Jackson, Head of Research at Right To Life, said “The fact that at least one person took so long to die reveals that assisted death is not always the peaceful way to die that its supporters pretend. Worse still, it could have taken far longer, and there could have been serious complications that were simply not recorded”.
“The law is already extremely broad and gaps in the data are already becoming apparent. The fact that complications are unknown in some instances and that time from administration to death is also unknown in some cases is alarming. The Board should be focusing its energies on rolling back this law, not expanding its scope”.
