Andrew Denton on a beloved broadcaster's final taboo act
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What led James Valentine to discuss his cancer diagnosis publicly?
Well, this is a bit of a strange moment for me and probably for you as well. I have to tell you something. There's something I have to share that has been going on in my life and that I now have to tell you about because I'm not going to be here for a few months. I've got to go off and deal with something. And the thing I've got to go off and deal with is cancer. I've got a cancer and I'm
From his diagnosis with esophageal cancer in 2024 to openly wrestling with end-of-life decisions, beloved ABC broadcaster and long-time voice of Sydney Afternoons, James Valentine, took his listeners along with him as he stared down his own death.
I'm James Valentine and this season we're talking about death or on this episode why we don't talk about it enough.
Now after his passing that openness continues with James's decision to share the fact that he ended his life through voluntary assisted dying or VAD.
He was able to to do the VAD which was really important to him so we were all able to be together and just you know yeah it was really beautiful. In his final moments he was um still concerned about making a difference and that was something that was so important to him that we mentioned that.
I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to 7am. Today, Go Gentle Australia founder Andrew Denton on James's decision and why some Australians still have trouble accessing VAD despite it being legal in all but one Australian territory. It's Wednesday, April 29. Andrew, you knew James Valentine and had spoken to him about voluntary assisted dying. How did that conversation go and could you tell us about how open he was while facing death?
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?
We have a funny connection over many decades. And to observe you go through, you know, to see you transform and doing that work has been quite extraordinary. And I probably just contemplated my own death. Exactly right, 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.
Now, James had decided that he wanted his family to share with the public how he died. Why do you think that he wanted them to know? And what type of impact do you think that kind of conversation and sharing will have on the community?
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.
We knew it was coming. We knew there was sort of no way out of this. But to be able to sort of do it on his own terms was really important to him and to sort of get that choice as much as he could in this time. And he really wanted to know. He wanted it to be something that people knew that he did, that if there's ever, you know, he could lend his voice to the argument of why this is such a necessary thing for so many people.
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