The Northern Territory Government has passed a bill to legalise voluntary assisted dying (VAD).
It comes three decades after the Federal Government overturned the territory’s first bill legalising VAD.
The change means that VAD is now legal Australia-wide.
Here’s what you need to know.
Background
VAD lets a terminally ill person access medical assistance to end their life, under strict eligibility rules.
The NT was actually the first place in the world to legalise VAD, back in 1995.
Then-Chief Minister Marshall Perron introduced the NT’s original bill in 1995, telling Parliament in his closing speech: “They are not just ’patients’; they are people.”
He resigned as Chief Minister the same day, before the vote, so his position wouldn’t be perceived as influencing how his party members voted.
In 1997, the Federal Parliament passed a law stripping the territories (not the states) of the power to legislate on VAD at all, after the NT’s original 1995 law caused political controversy.
Victoria then became the first Australian state to legalise VAD in 2019.
Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales followed.
The federal ban on the territories wasn’t lifted until 2022.
The ACT legalised VAD in 2025 once its powers were restored.
Opposition
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The new bill went to a parliamentary inquiry as part of the process to get it passed.
During the inquiry, the Catholic Diocese of Darwin said it opposed VAD entirely, arguing it “undermines” the role of medicine and human dignity.
Aboriginal health group the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress took no formal position, but warned some communities feared health services could unfairly face “blame” for deaths linked to VAD, and erode the trust of local communities in the territory’s healthcare systems.
New law
On Thursday night, NT Parliament passed the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill in a conscience vote (when members can vote based on their own opinion, not as a party).
To access VAD under the bill, patients need to have been diagnosed with a medical condition that will lead to their death in 12 months or less, and which causes “suffering that the person considers to be intolerable”.
Patients must bring up VAD with their doctor first, not the other way around.
A person seeking VAD must be medically assessed as having the capacity to make that decision, and to be doing so without being coerced.
The bill includes a clause that a person can agree to VAD, but if they lose “decision-making capacity” permanently after that, their access is revoked.
“This is a deeply personal issue for many Territorians, and it goes to the heart of many of our core values as a Territory – certainty, compassion, and the freedom to choose.”
NT Attorney General Marie-Clare Boothby announcing the reforms.
What’s next?
The territory has an 18-month rollout period to build the medical and administrative systems needed to run VAD safely, so access likely won’t start for a while.
Currently, there is a federal law banning the use of telehealth to discuss VAD.
The law could limit access in the NT in particular, where a large percentage of the population lives in rural or remote areas.
