Pro-life group Right To Life has called for an inquiry into the assisted suicide system currently operating in the Australian state of Queensland.
Recent figures have shown that assisted suicide accounted for three per cent of all deaths in Queensland in 2025-2026 - the highest proportion of any state in Australia. Right To Life argued that the figure is only likely to increase, particularly if calls to remove existing safeguards are heeded.
In its third quarter report, Queensland’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board said there were 283 deaths via euthanasia or assisted suicide, with 80 per cent being euthanasia.
The distinction is that in euthanasia a medical professional ends the life of the patient, whereas in assisted suicide the patient is the one to administer the drugs under medical supervision.
Queensland’s official annual report found that in the year from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, some 1,082 people ended their lives by assisted suicide or euthanasia, up by over a third from when the controversial practice was introduced. In the first full year of operation (2023-24), assisted suicide and euthanasia accounted for 793 deaths in the state.
Despite the rise in deaths, the Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board has recommended a loosening of safeguards, arguing that the requirement to have an in-person consultation be watered down and that video calls or phone calls be used instead.
Right To Life argues that such a change would make cases of coercion harder to detect.
Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan, Chief Executive of Right To Life, said “We are calling on Queensland’s Health Minister, Tim Nicholls, to commission an urgent independent inquiry into Queensland’s assisted suicide and euthanasia system, including whether claimed safeguards in current legislation are protecting vulnerable people in practice.”
He added, “This will likely get much worse if the law is expanded and safeguards are removed in Queensland, as is being called for by assisted death campaigners and astonishingly by the very Review Board tasked with ensuring the law and its purported safeguards operate properly.”
The group also called on Queensland to publish data on complications arising from cases of assisted suicide or euthanasia, something it does not presently do. Queensland also does not publish numbers on cases of assisted suicide that are refused on grounds of coercion, although it does publish the percentage of people applying who are deemed eligible.
