John Hammond may be one of Western Australia’s most high profile lawyers but he rates a university summer job working at a Home of Peace for the incurable and dying as the emotionally toughest he has faced. 

My family has experienced so much death over the years. I believe everybody has the right to die with dignity. That is based on my life experiences and the hardship that my family has been through since I was a young girl.

My mum’s name was Eileen O’Loughlan. She was a really lovely Irish woman, one of 15 kids and so compassionate and loving. She was 50-years-old when she first diagnosed with lung cancer. She had a lobe removed and life went back to normal. We didn’t realise at the time that the lung cancer was secondary and the primary cancer was actually liver cancer. When I was 22, soon after having my first child, I was told mum’s cancer had come back.

I’m in favour of people having the choice of assisted dying in cases like Motor Neurone Disease. With MND there is currently no hope of any treatment or a cure. You just want to spend your life with as much quality as you can and as much time with your loved ones as you can. I think it would help people to know they have a dignified way out.

My Dad’s name was Ron Anderson. He was one of those people in this world who was really understated.

Van (Willem van Soest) and his family migrated from the Netherlands to Australia in 1955, settling first in Elizabeth and then Whyalla in South Australia.

My parents are from Argentina, but our family moved to the Netherlands when I was four-years-old. Over there, it’s common to talk about death. You grow up with it, you discuss organ donation, you discuss euthanasia. Euthanasia would never, ever be considered a murder or a killing.

Ten years ago I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Since then I have consulted several neurologists and other medical specialists and have spent periods in hospital after falls and infections. I have been unable to work since 2009 and my condition has worsened progressively since then.

My father Ernest John Hindle, who people knew as Pat, died in 1989. He had terminal prostate cancer. It metastasised and went to his bones. He was on morphine which he couldn’t tolerate because it made him ill. There are better pain relief methods these days, but that was when I first became aware that people could die badly.

Popular Perth newsreader Narelda Jacobs remembers close friend Robyn Hornsey pointing up to heaven and saying “It’s time to go. I want to go”.