Andrew Denton

About a year before James died, I did a remarkable podcast conversation with him and a clinical psychologist, Dr. Kerry Noonan, which in James's inimitable style, he titled, Let's Talk About Death, Baby.

And we spoke very openly about the difficulty of confronting death, the way conversations shut down around it, about how to have those conversations.

And about what happens after people die and how to have those conversations.

And it was remarkably raw because of James's situation.

He was in between his first cancer treatment and he had gone into remission.

But at the end of the conversation, and I remember very clearly, I could see James getting emotional.

And I asked him, I said, what are you feeling right now, James?

I think it says a lot about his courage and his skill as a communicator that he was prepared to be so open about something about which many of us are very closed.

Look, it shouldn't be courageous.

But unfortunately, there's a great deal of stigma that sits around voluntary assisted dying.

It's a stigma that was in many ways created, enforced and amplified by its opponents, most particularly the Catholic Church.

who still refer to it as some form of suicide, even though the leading suicide prevention organisations in Australia see it as something distinctly different.

It's a choice between two forms of death.

I think they wanted to talk about it because they, for the same reason that James wanted to talk about his illness and his diagnosis and his treatment, that he wanted to demystify and model a good way to approach end of life.

The fact that his kids have now gone on air and talked about what those last days were like for James, the level of control and love it enabled.

James had a big living wake.

where he was farewelled by 300 of his friends and the people who loved him.

So it leaves, and I'm sure it's left James's family and friends with beautiful memories of James.

And, you know, I understand he played the sax, which of course was fantastic.

part of his essential persona.