Voluntary assisted dying decision: WA man the first to fight for right to end his own life in SAT hearing

A WA man has become the first person to take his fight for his right to end his own life to court after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The 67-year-old man made the request to end his life with dignity in October last year and met all of the eligibility requirements except for one — that he had not been “ordinarily” a resident of WA for at least 12 months. He took his case to the State Administration Tribunal for review — the first time such a case has been decided by the body — which sided with him and decided he did meet the criteria to be able to end his life in WA. A judgment detailed how the man’s medical practitioner had decided he had not been ordinarily a resident in WA because there was information from his palliative care team that suggested he had only recently arrived in WA to stay with a friend. However, evidence presented to the SAT included that the man had moved to WA in 1991, had worked in various jobs in the State for 30 years, and had held a WA licence, skipper’s ticket and a bank account in the regional town where he lived that entire time. But the man had bought a home in NSW — which he bought so he had somewhere to stay when he visited his parents — and visited Cambodia regularly where his partner and her daughter lived. After being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019 and told that it had spread to his brain in 2022, the man was given a year to live. He decided that he should get his life affairs in order, including finishing off renovations to his NSW property as well as travelling. His intention was to sell NSW home and give the proceeds to his family in Cambodia, the tribunal was told, and he lived there on and off between July 2020 and 2023 while the renovations took place. The tribunal found the man “always intended to return to Western Australia once he sorted out the New South Wales property, and after saying goodbye to his Cambodian family”. “(He) regards Western Australia as his home, that it is where his heart is, and his heart is in regional Western Australia,” it found. “He calls himself a Western Australian. He says he wants to die here. He wants to be buried in the same regional town in Western Australia where he lived for more than 20 years, and where he is now living in palliative care.” The tribunal found the man could be “properly said to have been ordinarily a resident of Western Australia for at least 12 months” prior to requesting VAD — and in fact since 1991 — and that his time in NSW was temporary.