It's been 19 years since Andrew Denton watched his father suffer a slow and painful death from heart failure.
He says the images will never be erased.
But the broadcaster-turned-euthanasia campaigner is on a mission to force politicians to do what the majority of voters want.
Mr Denton says polls consistently show at least 70 per cent of Australians want assisted dying laws but lawmakers have been "derelict in their duty".
He has travelled to places where such laws have operated successfully for years with strong safeguards to protect the vulnerable.
He says Australian politicians, reluctant to look closely into what is confronting and complex material, are being too easily persuaded by vocal lobby groups, mainly Christian groups.
These groups are willing to say anything to derail the debate, preventing a conversation about the damage being done by the absence of assisted dying laws, he says.
"They are often persuaded by myths," he told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
"By failing to properly examine the claim that `no safeguard can be devised to protect the vulnerable', our politicians have failed, instead, to protect the people they represent."
Mr Denton says politicians and doctors are unaware of the scale of the problem.
He pointed to a recent Victorian parliamentary inquiry which heard evidence from state coroner John Olle about how elderly Victorians - one a week - are killing themselves in horrific ways like shooting themselves with a nail gun to escape their suffering.
The inquiry found assisted dying already happening in Australia but "without regulation ... sometimes without consent".
Mr Denton has launched a new organisation, Go Gentle Australia, to give those suffering a voice.
"I hope what will change is that the politicians no longer feel comfortable to just step away from a solution to this kind of suffering."
