Opposition corrections spokesman Ed O'Donohue – who chaired a parliamentary committee that examined end-of-choices earlier this year – said he would vote in favour of assisted dying laws if the issue was put to a conscience vote.

"Our report has created a pathway for reform that deals with the perceived risks, and by world standards is a relatively modest regulatory framework," Mr O'Donohue said. "If the committee's recommendations were to be reflected in legislation, I would vote in favour of that."

The push to give terminally ill people the ability to choose the timing and manner of their death intensified in June, when Mr O'Donohue's Legal and Social Issues Committee handed down a report that the Andrews government must respond to by the end of the year.

Based on a 10-month inquiry and more than 1000 submissions, the bipartisan report recommended an assisted dying regime be available to adults who are suffering from a serious or incurable condition at the end of their life and which is "causing enduring and unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner the patient deems tolerable".

Under the proposal, only patients with decision-making capacity would have the right to ask for help to die - not their relatives or another person. First they would make an initial verbal request to their doctor, then they would need to fill in a form, and then they would need to affirm their wish to die verbally again.