DISCUSSION of death and dying is still something of a taboo in our society.
But, as Australia’s best-known voluntary euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke argues, patients who are seriously ill deserve to have a choice about how to exit this world. That is perhaps why this medico has spent years developing peaceful and reliable methods designed to give dignity and choice to those whose physical suffering has become too much to bear.

What the good doctor never banked on is the reaction of the Australian Health Professionals Regulatory Authority. In August, AHPRA launched …

JULIA Gillard has been rightly criticised for her poor judgment.
There are too many examples to list, but they include her farcical announcement of an East Timor processing centre for asylum-seekers; her citizens’ assembly that sank without trace; her panicked decision to suspend live-cattle exports to Indonesia; her introduction of the carbon tax that she promised would not be introduced; her lax oversight of the heavily rorted school building program; and her support for disgraced MPs Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson.

Even though I initially thought it a good idea, another poor …