Tasmania has legalised voluntary assisted dying. What happens now and how will it work?

Tasmania has passed voluntary assisted dying (VAD) legislation, making it the third jurisdiction in Australia to do so, after Victoria and Western Australia.

Ceara Rickard, who has been given a terminal diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, is relieved it will now be legal to end her life in the late stages of her illness.

“I don’t have a death wish — I would love to live until I was 80 or 90 — [but] at the same time there will come a point where my body gives out,” she said.

How long will it be before people can access VAD?

Not for a while. There is an 18-month implementation period during which a Commission of Voluntary Assisted Dying will be…