Barriers remain to accessing voluntary assisted dying, despite euthanasia being accessible in every state and territory, advocates say.
In an address to the National Press Club, broadcaster and founder of advocacy group Go Gentle Australia Andrew Denton will call for measures restricting voluntary assisted dying to be scrapped.
Since Victoria enacted laws in 2016, all other jurisdictions have followed suit, with the Northern Territory being the last to do so in August.
But Mr Denton said policies that were originally designed to stop people moving states to access jurisdictions where voluntary assisted dying was legal are still in effect.
He said those laws now prevent people seeking assistance from being closer to family.
"What once, perhaps, made sense, when VAD was legal in a handful of states, is today redundant.," he will say in the address.
"Ten years from now, I hope to describe a country where VAD is no longer stigmatised .... gone will be outdated elements of our laws, enacted as safeguards, but which have become barriers."
Among the measures Mr Denton hopes to see axed is a ban on telehealth services for voluntary assisted dying.
Laws were set up to stop advice being provided over the phone or internet, but Mr Denton said they stopped people in remote and regional areas from accessing services their city counterparts could get.
"This ban creates a postcode lottery, disproportionately impacting terminally ill people in rural and remote Australia, who cannot manage the travel required for multiple VAD consultations," he will say.
"Despite virtual care such as telehealth now being a vital part of our healthcare, VAD providers risk prosecution and a $364,000 fine for 'inciting or counselling' suicide if they use it."
Federal Labor agreed at the party's national conference in July to bring forward debate on scrapping the telehealth ban, with its members granted a conscience vote, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has opposed any changes to the laws.
Mr Denton will use the speech to say the stigma surrounding voluntary assisted dying remained, and still came from the medical profession.
"Sometimes the line from conscientious objection to obstruction is crossed in small but insidious ways," he will say.
"An objecting doctor who ignores their professional obligation to pass on information about VAD services can block a person’s access altogether.
"Having plucked up the courage to ask, some will assume from that dismissal that all health professionals feel the same – and never ask again."
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