Greens MP Colleen Hartland has outlined the party's doctor assisted euthanasia legislation for the first time, in the state upper house.
Hartland said the bill would allow an adult "suffering intolerably" from a terminal or advanced illness to ask a doctor for help to die.
"If the patient is ready to die of a terminal or incurable illness, if the patient is suffering profoundly and has given up the fight after considering every alternative - let them look their doctor in the eye and ask for assistance to die in a way the sufferer believes is dignified and consistent with their values," Hartland told the parliament.
The laws would enable adults living in Victoria who are suffering a terminal illness to seek medical help to end their lives.
A second opinion must be sought from a doctor who can verify the patient's diagnosis, prognosis, consent and mental competency.
"It provides for a doctor to choose whether or not to discuss the request with the sufferer," Hartland said.
"If the sufferer qualifies after a thorough process of consultation with two experienced doctors and, after at least one cooling off period, the sufferer may then choose when to take the drug or may choose not to take it."
Hartland said the current law "lags behind the will of the people" and enables doctors to medicate patients in a way that would hasten death, so long as that was not the intention.
"If a doctor gives increasing doses of morphine over a period of time to a cancer patient who is incurable and in great pain (and) the patient dies as a result of that medication, it is very unlikely that the doctor's treatment will be questioned," she said.
"But if that doctor gives the same patient one last dose of morphine which ends the patient's life at the patient's request, then the doctor's actions are very likely to be questioned and he or she may even be prosecuted for murder."
Debate of the Medical Treatment Physician Assisted Dying Bill has been adjourned until the next sitting week of the Victorian Parliament.
