"My generation in Australia has been fortunate to grow up with great freedoms in life. Born into unprecedented post-war peacetime, we have had the precious privilege of championing freedom and pushing its boundaries as we grew and took our place in the world. How unjust it is to think that simple freedoms, such as the choice to marry as we wish, and the choice to determine our own time of death, should be denied us in the natural course of living and ageing, especially if great pain and suffering comes our way as it randomly does to so many. We are said to be a secular society: if that is true, then the religious and philosophical views of some ought not to dictate for others, the terms and conditions of their lives and deaths. Let us legislate for equality and freedom – aren’t they among the things this country should stand for?''