The controversial founder and director of pro-euthanasia group Exit International, Philip Nitschke, has once again placed himself amid the national debate about the right for terminally ill people to end their lives.
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Dr Nitschke whose right to practise as a doctor was suspended after the death of 45-year-old Nigel Brayley, a physically well but troubled man, has shown in the past he has a flair for the theatrical and self-promotion.
He has put himself front and centre again by announcing a national roadshow of workshops, which begin in Canberra on June 10, for elderly and seriously ill people. The workshops are based on a banned book that teaches suicide methods.
Dr Nitschke was also the first physician in the world to have killed someone with a legal, voluntary injection – Darwin prostate cancer victim Bob Dent in 1996 under the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act.
That legislation was nullified within a year by the Federal Parliament, after Nitschke had helped four people end their lives.
It is worth noting the ACT also tabled its own, short-lived voluntary euthanasia legislation.
It, too, was nullified by a private member's bill sponsored by federal Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, the current Defence Minister.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown late made two, unsuccessful attempts to repeal the legislation that banned the ACT from passing laws that would help a person to end their life, but was unsuccessful.
Many Canberra residents would wish for a better death for their loved ones, and even, perhaps, themselves.
But the question must be asked: what constitutes a "better" death? For some, that means ensuring they leave explicit instructions for future care.
For others, it is improved palliative care. Yet, for many people, this is not enough. They desire the freedom to escape a debilitating, terminal health condition by accessing help to end their lives.
The alternative, in their view, is the state sanctioning of prolonged and unnecessarily painful existence.
Since the Federal Parliament overruled the two territories' decisions to legislate euthanasia regimes almost two decades ago, most parliamentarians have been reluctant to tackle to this difficult issue.
Yet it's past time we debated euthanasia again in our legislatures.
There is clearly strong support, among a large section of the public at least, to legalise assisted suicide.
Designing a workable, balanced legislative framework would be difficult but far from impossible.
Arguably worse would be to leave those desperate, agonised individuals who insist on killing themselves with no medical professionals from whom they can at least seek advice.
