Even if palliation is 99 per cent successful, we cannot ignore the remaining one per cent as if those people don't matter.

Society, and therefore governments, should not try to rationalise that residual, relentless suffering simply because it represents a minority of dying individuals. Do their deaths simply fall under the heading of "collateral damage"? I hope not.

It is suggested we need an "open discussion about the ethics, moral imperatives and potential pitfalls", as though this will lead to the government acting upon communal expectations.

Here is the reality. That conversation has already happened many, many times over many, many years. The government already knows what the community wants.

All that is lacking, which has been for those years, is the will, the compassion and the political backbone for the government to listen to that conversation.

This government already has a mandate to introducing assisted dying laws. Apparently not all "mandates" are equal.