Better Off Dead

By The Wheeler Centre

What's 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 - because there is no law to help them.

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Bonus Episode 14: Last Word...

05.27.2021

The final episode of Better Off Dead season two centres on a recording of the Wheeler Centre’s Last Words: Voluntary Assisted Dying panel discussion. Previously broadcast on Radio National’s Big Ideas programme, it features a panel discussion on voluntary assisted ...

Better Off Dead episodes:

05.27.2021 Bonus Episode 14: Last Words: Voluntary Assisted Dying The final episode of Better Off Dead season two centres on a recording of the Wheeler Centre’s Last Words: Voluntary Assisted Dying panel discussion. Previously broadcast on Radio National’s Big Ideas programme, it features a panel discussion on voluntary assisted ...
05.24.2021 #13 Unintended Consequences In this episode, we hear from the families of two eligible Victorians who struggled to access VAD. And we hear something never heard before —-- a father and daughter as they actually go through the process of applying for a ...
05.19.2021 #12 A Cry For Help In this episode, we hear from some of the most senior figures in Australian palliative care. We also hear from others who have a different understanding of such requests, and who believe that the people who make them can be ...
05.17.2021 #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 – ...
05.12.2021 #10 We Who Walk Towards Death Palliative care’s background is as a provider of Christian care; more than half of Australia’s palliative care is supplied by The Catholic Church. According to The Vatican, assisting someone to die is ‘intrinsically evil.’ In this episode, we meet some ...
05.10.2021 #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 ...
05.05.2021 #8 The Good Samaritan In this episode, we meet Colin, a former champion swimmer and professor of philosophy who is dying and who has applied for the legal right to end his own life. Colin lives by the ancient Roman philosophy of Stoicism. This ...
05.03.2021 #7 The ‘C’ Word In this episode, we meet The Hon Betty King QC – “Guardian of the Safeguards’ – as well as doctors, palliative care physicians, pharmacists, VAD Care Navigators, and families of those who have been through the process to find out ...
04.28.2021 #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’. In this episode, we meet Professor Michael Dooley who runs Victoria’s Statewide Pharmacy Service. ...
04.26.2021 #5 I Choose Not to Suffer In this episode, we meet Ron Poole, Fiona McClure, and Peter Jones, three Victorians from very different backgrounds in the final stages of a terminal illness and facing potentially brutal deaths.
04.21.2021 #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 ...
04.19.2021 #3 Lucky Phil In this episode, we meet oncologist Cam McLaren, who is faced with the question, “Am I capable of ending my patient’s life?” And we meet Katie Harley. Her father Phil – Cam’s patient – has had so many forms of ...
04.15.2021 #2 The Fire or The Fall In this episode we meet Lisa, whose mum Margaret was a fiercely independent 82-year-old woman dying of a rare degenerative neurological disease. The race to meet the strict eligibility requirements of the VAD law, before she lost the ability to ...
04.13.2021 #1 The Belly of the Beast In the first episode of season two of Better Off Dead, we meet the family of 36-year-old Robbie Caliste. Robbie was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in the same year the Victorian parliament endorsed medical assistance to die. In ...
03.01.2021 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 ...
04.13.2016 #17 Why Do I Have to Go Through Hell to Get to Heaven? In this final episode, drawing on what has worked best overseas, Andrew outlines what he thinks the law for assisted dying in Australia should look like. Plus, we’ll hear from two significant stakeholders who both support a change in the ...
04.12.2016 #17 Why Do I Have to Go Through Hell to Get to Heaven? In this final episode, drawing on what has worked best overseas, Andrew outlines what he thinks the law for assisted dying in Australia should look like. Plus, we’ll hear from two significant stakeholders who both support a change in the ...
04.07.2016 #16 Abandon Hope My search for the truth about assisted dying began when I was invited to attend the HOPE anti-euthanasia convention in Adelaide, featuring speakers from around the world. I heard dire warnings about what was happening in Belgium, the Netherlands and ...
04.06.2016 #16 Abandon Hope My search for the truth about assisted dying began when I was invited to attend the HOPE anti-euthanasia convention in Adelaide, featuring speakers from around the world. I heard dire warnings about what was happening in Belgium, the Netherlands and ...
04.05.2016 #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?' In this episode, we’re going to meet father of two, ...
04.04.2016 #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?' In this episode, we’re going to meet father of two, ...
03.30.2016 #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. ...
03.29.2016 #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. ...
03.24.2016 #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 … which is why the words of Sydney's Archbishop Anthony ...
03.23.2016 #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 … which is why the words of Sydney's Archbishop Anthony ...
03.22.2016 #12 Velvet Ray Ray Godbold is a palliative care nurse faced with terminal cancer – but he doesn’t want to die in palliative care. There's a lot that Ray knows about death –but what he doesn’t know is that his own death will ...
03.21.2016 #12 Velvet Ray Ray Godbold is a palliative care nurse faced with terminal cancer – but he doesn’t want to die in palliative care. There's a lot that Ray knows about death –but what he doesn’t know is that his own death will ...
03.17.2016 #11 Whose life is it anyway?: palliative care in Australia, part 2 As Andrew spent a week watching the doctors and nurses of St Vincent's palliative care unit in Sydney go about their work, he noticed two things: the compassion and care from everyone as they helped people to die in often ...
03.16.2016 #11 Whose life is it anyway?: palliative care in Australia, part 2 As Andrew spent a week watching the doctors and nurses of St Vincent's palliative care unit in Sydney go about their work, he noticed two things: the compassion and care from everyone as they helped people to die in often ...
03.15.2016 #10 Neither hasten nor prolong death: palliative care in Australia, part 1 Speaking with doctors in Belgium, the Netherlands and Oregon, Andrew 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 ...
03.08.2016 #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 ...
03.07.2016 #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 ...
03.03.2016 #8 Darkness visible: Marjorie, Edith and Laura: Belgium, part 2 Shortly after arriving in Belgium, Andrew learned of ‘Laura’ – a 24-year-old woman who had sought the right to be euthanised after years of unrelieved mental suffering. It marked the point where Andrew began to feel uncomfortable. Ultimately, several particularly ...
03.02.2016 #8 Darkness visible: Marjorie, Edith and Laura: Belgium, part 2 Shortly after arriving in Belgium, Andrew learned of ‘Laura’ – a 24-year-old woman who had sought the right to be euthanised after years of unrelieved mental suffering. It marked the point where Andrew began to feel uncomfortable. Ultimately, several particularly ...
03.01.2016 #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 ...
02.29.2016 #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 ...
02.24.2016 #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 ...
02.23.2016 #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 ...
02.23.2016 #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, ...
02.22.2016 #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, ...
02.17.2016 #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 ...
02.16.2016 #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 ...
02.16.2016 #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 ...
02.15.2016 #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 ...
02.15.2016 #2 How dare you want to end your life: Liz's story What's it like to live in fear that your death may incriminate the ones you love? What if your only solution is to die alone? Andrew meets Liz, a woman who has cancer and who’s been told she has months ...
11.08.2015 #1 The invasion of death To begin Better Off Dead, writer and broadcaster Andrew Denton describes what led him to begin investigating assisted dying laws. He speaks with his old family doctor and meets a woman whose terminally-ill father chose to die peacefully in the ...
11.07.2015 #1 The invasion of death To begin Better Off Dead, writer and broadcaster Andrew Denton describes what led him to begin investigating assisted dying laws. He speaks with his old family doctor and meets a woman whose terminally-ill father chose to die peacefully in the ...
11.06.2015 Welcome Andrew Denton investigates the stories, moral arguments and individuals woven into discussions about why good people are dying bad deaths.
11.05.2015 Welcome Andrew Denton investigates the stories, moral arguments and individuals woven into discussions about why good people are dying bad deaths.

Better Off Dead

What's Better Off Dead about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Better Off Dead episodes:

Bonus Episode 14: Last Words: Voluntary Assisted Dying

#13 Unintended Consequences

#12 A Cry For Help

#11 The End of Life Lottery

#10 We Who Walk Towards Death

#9 The Light Under the Bushel

#8 The Good Samaritan

#7 The ‘C’ Word

#6 The Locked Box

#5 I Choose Not to Suffer

#4 Do No Harm

#3 Lucky Phil

#2 The Fire or The Fall

#1 The Belly of the Beast

Season 2 Trailer

#17 Why Do I Have to Go Through Hell to Get to Heaven?

#17 Why Do I Have to Go Through Hell to Get to Heaven?

#16 Abandon Hope

#16 Abandon Hope

#15 Lawrie's Story

#15 Lawrie's Story

#14 Australia's Dark Little Secret

#14 Australia's Dark Little Secret

#13 Now They're Killing Babies

#13 Now They're Killing Babies

#12 Velvet Ray

#12 Velvet Ray

#11 Whose life is it anyway?: palliative care in Australia, part 2

#11 Whose life is it anyway?: palliative care in Australia, part 2

#10 Neither hasten nor prolong death: palliative care in Australia, part 1

#9 Why should one church decide for all of us? Death with dignity in Oregon

#9 Why should one church decide for all of us? Death with dignity in Oregon

#8 Darkness visible: Marjorie, Edith and Laura: Belgium, part 2

#8 Darkness visible: Marjorie, Edith and Laura: Belgium, part 2

#7 The killing fields of Belgium: Belgium, part 1

#7 The killing fields of Belgium: Belgium, part 1

#6 Once you start killing, you can't stop: the Netherlands, part 2

#6 Once you start killing, you can't stop: the Netherlands, part 2

#5 The keys to life and death in someone else's hands: the Netherlands, part 1

#5 The keys to life and death in someone else's hands: the Netherlands, part 1

#4 It can never be perfect, so why try and improve it?

#4 It can never be perfect, so why try and improve it?

#3 The 80-year-old outlaw

#3 The 80-year-old outlaw

#2 How dare you want to end your life: Liz's story

#1 The invasion of death

#1 The invasion of death

Welcome

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