After a 10-month inquiry, a cross-party committee will hand down a report within weeks, which The Sunday Age believes will call for a dramatic shake-up in the law – including the likely suggestion that the state government create a regulated, assisted dying regime for people who are suffering.

Such a move will inevitably polarise the community and challenge Premier Daniel Andrews, who last year conceded "there is perhaps more public support for this change than there has ever been" but has so far stopped short of backing voluntary euthanasia or any other major dying-with-dignity reforms.

However, proponents argue a shift is long overdue, with the inquiry receiving 1030 submissions on the issue – of which about 60 per cent supported people having more end-of-life choice and relief from chronic pain and suffering.

The push towards assisted dying in strictly defined circumstances comes after MPs from parliament's Legal and Social Issues Committee spent 13 days in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada and the US last month, speaking to experts about palliative care and legalised euthanasia in those respective jurisdictions.

More than 100 witnesses – including medical specialists, legal experts, and terminally ill people and their families – have also presented compelling evidence to the inquiry that will shape the committee's final report.

Some have argued that palliative care is often not enough to end certain patients' pain and suffering. Others have raised fears that people may feel pressured to end their lives if the law changes. And some, like the Coroner's Court, told the inquiry of several suicides involving terminally ill Victorians "taking their lives in desperate, determined and violent ways" in order to end their suffering.

Asked during the hearing whether euthanasia was practised in the medical system, either "covertly" or "at the margins", Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation officer Mark Staaf told the committee: "I think that has always been the case."

"I don't know any health practitioner – doctor, nurse or anyone else – who would be involved in deliberately killing people but they certainly want people to go off comfortably," he said.

The government will have six months to respond to the inquiry. A Sunday Age analysis of submissions also found:

• People are more likely to support changing the law if they know someone who is dying.
• Advance care planning and improved palliative care are also issues the community wants addressed.
• Of the 60 or so people who disclosed that they were terminally ill, only one suggested they were not in favour assisted dying laws.

Parliament's Legal and Social Issues committee is made up of three Labor MPs (Jaclyn Symes, Cesar Melhem, Daniel Mulino); three Liberal MPs (chairman Edward O'Donohue, Margaret Fitzherbert and Inga Peulich) and one representative each from the Sex Party (Fiona Patten) and the Greens (Nina Springle).

However, it is likely the committee will end up being split in its views, potentially resulting in some MPs lodging a separate "minority report" that rejects the notion of voluntary euthanasia (which involves ending another person's life to relieve their suffering) or assisted suicide (which involves helping another person to kill themselves, for instance by writing a prescription). Any bill that is introduced into Parliament would also require a conscience vote among the major parties.

Asked about voluntary euthanasia last year, Mr Andrews told the Melbourne Press Club: "I don't support, at this stage … making the sort of change that some people would like to make, but I do readily acknowledge that there is certainly more momentum."

Committee chair Mr O'Donohue declined to comment other than to say: "The report into End of Life Choices will soon be tabled in Parliament. The committee has received over 1000 submissions, heard from over 100 witnesses and visited jurisdictions which have legalised assisted dying."