Bans on patients accessing voluntary euthanasia if they have recently moved states are “irrelevant” and should be ditched, says an adviser to Victoria’s landmark legislation. 

When Victoria became the first state to legalise voluntary assisted dying (VAD) in 2017, politicians decided to limit access to patients who had lived in the state for 12 months, and exclude non-citizens who were not permanent residents.

According to palliative care specialist Dr Roger Hunt, MPs were concerned about ‘VAD tourism’: a possible influx of patients from other states coming to Victoria to end their lives.

But since then, all other states had enacted VAD schemes or legislated a plan to do so, said Dr Hunt, who advised Victoria, SA and WA on their respective VAD laws.