Voluntary Assisted Dying Amendment Bill 2025

The Voluntary Assisted Dying Amendment Bill 2025 has been introduced to Parliament, following a review of Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws, five years after Victoria became the first Australian state to implement a VAD scheme in 2019. While the territories remain without VAD laws (although VAD laws in the ACT will come into force in November 2025), similar laws are now in place in all Australian states. There have since been calls to reform Victoria’s VAD scheme, where access is now comparatively more restricted.

This Bill brief provides an overview of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Amendment Bill 2025, including the background to its introduction, the proposed amendments, and responses to the Bill. It concludes with a comparison of relevant legislation across Australia.

If passed, the Bill will make several changes to the VAD program, such as removing the ‘gag clause’ prohibiting medical practitioners from raising VAD with their patients and amending VAD eligibility in terms of residency and prognosis timelines. The Bill also reduces the minimum timeframe between a person’s first and final requests for VAD and expands the ‘administering practitioner’ cohort to include nurse practitioners and registered nurses, among other amendments.

The Bill has received support from medical groups and advocacy groups as well as family members of people who have accessed VAD since its introduction. Conversely, some medical ethicists and religious faith leaders have expressed concern about the proposed amendments.