VOLUNTARY Euthanasia Party (VEP) candidate for the NSW Legislative Council and East Bowral resident Geoffery Williams remembers his mother telling him to knock her on the head if she ever got dementia.
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Now, Mr Williams' said his mother was dying of Alzheimer's, her greatest fear.
"She's a shell of the former intelligent, vibrant woman she once was and we can't help her," he said.
"She feared dementia more than anything else and now she's suffering a fate worse than death."
It's the primary reason Mr Williams is running for the NSW Legislative Council, however, his involvement in Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia was a factor in his selection by the party.
The VEP regards voluntary euthanasia as involving a request by a terminally or incurably ill person for medical assistance to end his or her life painlessly and peacefully.
"The VEP is a political alliance between non-political bodies," he said.
"Dying with Dignity in NSW is a lobby group, and most VEP members are also members of Dying with Dignity," Mr Williams said.
In the lead up to the election on March 28, Mr Williams has followed up with every candidate for the Lower House likely to win their seat and did not respond to the The Pollies Register, which questioned candidates' views on voluntary assisted dying.
"There are some candidates who have come out strongly in support of voluntary euthanasia on both sides of the house," Mr Williams said.
In 2013, Greens member of the NSW Legislative Council Cate Faehrman introduced a bill on the issue to the Upper House, which was defeated.
Mr Williams said if the Coalition had voted in the same proportion as Labor then voluntary euthanasia would already be legal in NSW.
A 2012 Newspoll on behalf of Dying with Dignity reported that 82.5 per cent of Australians and 87 per cent of NSW residents supported voluntary euthanasia.
Dying with Dignity polled all sitting and challenging politicians for the NSW State Election 2015 about voluntary euthanasia. Here's where the parties sit on the issue.