00:00:06
Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast. Hi, I'm Tamsin Rose with the latest from the Quickie Newsroom. How often do you think about your own funeral? Would you want everyone in black or is it a celebration of life, full of colour and perhaps some stunning florals? And what about how you want to die and where?
00:00:33
Speaker 2: To be cared for at home does take a lot of planning and human resource and community and people. And I think that it's probably one of those deeply undervalued things in our society, in our community.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: Today, we're tackling end-of-life care and the conversations we all need to be having. But first, here are your headlines for Friday, October 2nd. Australia's housing downturn is on track to become the deepest in 40 years, as economists warn already sizeable price drops could be only one third of the way through. National property values fell 1.1% in September, taking the total decline since the March peak to 5.2%. That's according to data firm Cotality. The median dwelling value dropped to around $ 900, 000, essentially back to where it was 12 months ago. Brisbane overtook Sydney as the city with the steepest monthly fall, down 1.5%, compared to Sydney's 1.4%. The mother of Jake and Callum Robinson has made a heartfelt plea at the Mexican murder trial into her son's death for a timely verdict. The bodies of the Australian brothers and their American friend Carter Road were found at the bottom of a well in Baja, California, after the men were reported missing from a surfing trip in 2024. The prosecution has argued the trio were killed in a robbery gone wrong. However, the defence has claimed that there's not enough evidence to prove it. Closing arguments in the case against the men are due to be held next week with a verdict to be delivered sometime afterwards. The men's mother, Deborah Robinson, requested the verdict be delivered before they returned home to Australia, which the judge has now granted. British police have asked prosecutors to consider charges including corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter against dozens of people over the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people. The Metropolitan Police said they had submitted their full case files to the Crown Prosecution Service for charging decisions, which the service said it would make before the 10th anniversary of the disaster in June next year. The force said it had also asked them to consider health and safety offences and misconduct in public office as part of its investigation into Britain's deadliest fire since World War II. Coming up, there's some good news for some tiny birds, plus how we all need to prepare for the inevitable. Music A woman has not died and instead been taken to hospital after Tennessee officials were unable to put her to death for a 1995 murder after administering two doses of a lethal drug. A death penalty expert said it was an unprecedented failure and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee halted the execution for the rest of 2026. Krista Pike, who's now 50, was alive and loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection and taken by ambulance from the prison. On Thursday night, she was being treated at a hospital. Pike had been scheduled for execution for the killing she committed at the age of 18 and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. And one of Australia's rarest birds has a new safe haven. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy has bought 200 hectares on King Island in the Bass Strait to protect the critically endangered King Island scrub tit. Fewer than 100 of the tiny birds are thought to be left, which makes them rarer than New Zealand's kakapo. The group plans to tackle feral cats, weeds and fire on the island.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: About 70% of the population will say, yep, I want to die at home without really kind of knowing totally what that entails. That's Dr.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Kerry Noonan. She's the acting head of La Trobe's Public Health Palliative Care Unit and the director of the Death Literacy Institute. And she's spent years getting Australians to talk about the one thing we'd rather avoid. Her team talks to thousands of people as part of their national death literacy and readiness work, They've been looking at it since 2019. Death literacy is basically how well you understand your options for the end of life and whether you know how to act on them for yourself and for the people you love.
00:05:14
Speaker 2: Death literacy in some areas is growing, in other areas probably isn't growing as quickly as it could be. One of the things that has changed a bit is our ability to talk about death and dying and our ability to to practice skills related to death and dying. I suspect that's related to the fact that many of us are caring for older people. So we've got a few more hands-on skills than we had. But our knowledge about death and dying and where to access palliative care and how to connect with services, that one isn't moving too much.
00:05:54
Speaker 1: The numbers back that up. 54% of us don't know how to access palliative care. 58% of us don't know what documents you need to plan for death. And 74% of us don't know enough about voluntary assisted dying to use it ourselves or to help someone else.
00:06:11
Speaker 2: People who have experienced voluntary assisted dying from a family member or a friend, for example... They do have higher death literacy overall, that's for sure. But when we look at a population, that isn't seemingly making a big impact on the population overall.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: Voluntary Sister Dying, also known as VAD, is now available in every state and the ACT. And the NT has passed its own laws, which haven't come into effect yet. The latest round of research released this week found an uptick in literacy for people who were around someone who'd used it. But interestingly, living through a pandemic didn't make us more prepared. When the team ran the survey in 2023, they found that people who'd lost someone to COVID actually had lower death literacy and the reason surprised them.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: When we did some additional analysis to understand what kind of led to the lower death literacy for that group, it was that social capital was lower, that People didn't have their family and connection. And so you could be death literate and go into your community and no one talks with you or no one supports you or the context, the social context that you're going into doesn't want to engage with that, then death literacy is impacted by that.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Dr Noonan says that's why some communities seem to do rituals and experiences in a way that provides more understanding and closure.
00:07:48
Speaker 2: What communities tell me, and particularly people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, is that we often know what our part to play is in death and grief. That can be challenging because some of those rituals may be difficult because of work and many other things. But also it can be comforting because you know that you're enacting or doing something that generations before you have done.
00:08:19
Speaker 1: Despite 70% of people reporting that they wanted to die at home, 40% weren't even sure it's allowed. And to be clear, it is. But Dr Noonan says that peaceful death at home in our beds at a ripe old age that many of us hope for is rarely a solo effort.
00:08:37
Speaker 2: Dying at home often takes a team. It often takes not only support from your GP or your palliative care service, but your family and friends and your neighbours.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: She knows this firsthand. Last year, Dr Noonan's mum died at home.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: We brought mum home from hospital. She died at home and we were all there. So it's my brother and I, my father, who mum and dad were both in their mid-80s. The dogs, the food, the TV, the sounds of home, photos, the comforts, the smells, all of those things were a really important part of the experience for not only for mum, but for us as a family and the comfort that that brought, especially for our children who ranged from like 23 down to, you know, four.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: So what do you actually do if someone dies at home? If the death was expected, Health Direct says there's no legal requirement to call anyone straight away and you don't need to call an ambulance or the police. You can take your time. Sit with them. Say goodbye. and call family or a friend for support. And when you're ready, call their doctor or palliative care team. They'll arrange for a doctor to come. After that, you'll call a funeral director. They'll collect your loved one and pass the paperwork on to births, deaths and marriages. And if you're caring for someone who wants to die at home, ask their doctor about death at home documents, like a letter telling the ambulance service that the death is expected. But of course, if a death is unexpected and the person didn't have a terminal illness, call 000. And the paperwork is certainly a thing. People are often shocked at what they call death admin. Dr Noonan's research found that only 23% of us have written down our end-of-life wishes in an advanced care directive. About half of us have a will, and just 11% of us have sorted out what happens with our online accounts like our photos, social media and emails after we die.
00:10:43
Speaker 2: What we're hearing is people often feel a bit bad about the fact they haven't done it.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: Dr Noonan's advice for getting started is pretty low pressure.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: At the very least, having a conversation about it or talking... with your partner or your chosen family or someone about what you want. It doesn't matter what age you are. Having a will at any age is important, for example. And when we look at age groups, doing your will when you're younger is actually quite low. So have the conversation with people. And I would say, don't worry about getting it wrong. Just be gentle and thoughtful and playful and Find some soft ways into the conversation, like thinking about a TV show or something that might have a theme of death or dying or a funeral.
00:11:33
Speaker 1: And once you've thought about what you want, communication is really key.
00:11:37
Speaker 2: If you want to write down your wishes, you can write down your wishes at any time. But you must tell someone about it. Because think about those wishes, whatever they are. By the time those wishes are important, you can't speak for yourself. Someone else needs to know where those wishes are and someone else needs to know how to enact them for you.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: If you want somewhere to start, the researchers have built a tool called ReadyConnect. It's a short quiz that shows you what you already know, where the gaps are and links you to trusted resources. They also suggest two other ways to build your death literacy. One is have a conversation with someone close to you, like your partner, your best mate or your mum. And get involved in your community, whether that's a local event, volunteering or dropping a meal to someone who's caring for someone or grieving. And as for where to start, Dr Noonan says to begin with what matters most to you.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: What is most important to you at the moment? Is it family? Is it comfort? Is it being on your own? Is it being in the bush? Is it being near the water? Like what is important to you and what are your values? Because I think most of us do die as we've lived our lives. And I think that that's quite a neat way to kind of gently lean into it.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening today. For more news like this, please click follow on the quickie wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating and a review. It helps other people find us. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.
Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast. Hi, I'm Tamsin Rose with the latest from the Quickie Newsroom. How often do you think about your own funeral? Would you want everyone in black or is it a celebration of life, full of colour and perhaps some stunning florals? And what about how you want to die and where?
00:00:33
Speaker 2: To be cared for at home does take a lot of planning and human resource and community and people. And I think that it's probably one of those deeply undervalued things in our society, in our community.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: Today, we're tackling end-of-life care and the conversations we all need to be having. But first, here are your headlines for Friday, October 2nd. Australia's housing downturn is on track to become the deepest in 40 years, as economists warn already sizeable price drops could be only one third of the way through. National property values fell 1.1% in September, taking the total decline since the March peak to 5.2%. That's according to data firm Cotality. The median dwelling value dropped to around $ 900, 000, essentially back to where it was 12 months ago. Brisbane overtook Sydney as the city with the steepest monthly fall, down 1.5%, compared to Sydney's 1.4%. The mother of Jake and Callum Robinson has made a heartfelt plea at the Mexican murder trial into her son's death for a timely verdict. The bodies of the Australian brothers and their American friend Carter Road were found at the bottom of a well in Baja, California, after the men were reported missing from a surfing trip in 2024. The prosecution has argued the trio were killed in a robbery gone wrong. However, the defence has claimed that there's not enough evidence to prove it. Closing arguments in the case against the men are due to be held next week with a verdict to be delivered sometime afterwards. The men's mother, Deborah Robinson, requested the verdict be delivered before they returned home to Australia, which the judge has now granted. British police have asked prosecutors to consider charges including corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter against dozens of people over the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people. The Metropolitan Police said they had submitted their full case files to the Crown Prosecution Service for charging decisions, which the service said it would make before the 10th anniversary of the disaster in June next year. The force said it had also asked them to consider health and safety offences and misconduct in public office as part of its investigation into Britain's deadliest fire since World War II. Coming up, there's some good news for some tiny birds, plus how we all need to prepare for the inevitable. Music A woman has not died and instead been taken to hospital after Tennessee officials were unable to put her to death for a 1995 murder after administering two doses of a lethal drug. A death penalty expert said it was an unprecedented failure and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee halted the execution for the rest of 2026. Krista Pike, who's now 50, was alive and loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection and taken by ambulance from the prison. On Thursday night, she was being treated at a hospital. Pike had been scheduled for execution for the killing she committed at the age of 18 and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. And one of Australia's rarest birds has a new safe haven. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy has bought 200 hectares on King Island in the Bass Strait to protect the critically endangered King Island scrub tit. Fewer than 100 of the tiny birds are thought to be left, which makes them rarer than New Zealand's kakapo. The group plans to tackle feral cats, weeds and fire on the island.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: About 70% of the population will say, yep, I want to die at home without really kind of knowing totally what that entails. That's Dr.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Kerry Noonan. She's the acting head of La Trobe's Public Health Palliative Care Unit and the director of the Death Literacy Institute. And she's spent years getting Australians to talk about the one thing we'd rather avoid. Her team talks to thousands of people as part of their national death literacy and readiness work, They've been looking at it since 2019. Death literacy is basically how well you understand your options for the end of life and whether you know how to act on them for yourself and for the people you love.
00:05:14
Speaker 2: Death literacy in some areas is growing, in other areas probably isn't growing as quickly as it could be. One of the things that has changed a bit is our ability to talk about death and dying and our ability to to practice skills related to death and dying. I suspect that's related to the fact that many of us are caring for older people. So we've got a few more hands-on skills than we had. But our knowledge about death and dying and where to access palliative care and how to connect with services, that one isn't moving too much.
00:05:54
Speaker 1: The numbers back that up. 54% of us don't know how to access palliative care. 58% of us don't know what documents you need to plan for death. And 74% of us don't know enough about voluntary assisted dying to use it ourselves or to help someone else.
00:06:11
Speaker 2: People who have experienced voluntary assisted dying from a family member or a friend, for example... They do have higher death literacy overall, that's for sure. But when we look at a population, that isn't seemingly making a big impact on the population overall.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: Voluntary Sister Dying, also known as VAD, is now available in every state and the ACT. And the NT has passed its own laws, which haven't come into effect yet. The latest round of research released this week found an uptick in literacy for people who were around someone who'd used it. But interestingly, living through a pandemic didn't make us more prepared. When the team ran the survey in 2023, they found that people who'd lost someone to COVID actually had lower death literacy and the reason surprised them.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: When we did some additional analysis to understand what kind of led to the lower death literacy for that group, it was that social capital was lower, that People didn't have their family and connection. And so you could be death literate and go into your community and no one talks with you or no one supports you or the context, the social context that you're going into doesn't want to engage with that, then death literacy is impacted by that.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Dr Noonan says that's why some communities seem to do rituals and experiences in a way that provides more understanding and closure.
00:07:48
Speaker 2: What communities tell me, and particularly people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, is that we often know what our part to play is in death and grief. That can be challenging because some of those rituals may be difficult because of work and many other things. But also it can be comforting because you know that you're enacting or doing something that generations before you have done.
00:08:19
Speaker 1: Despite 70% of people reporting that they wanted to die at home, 40% weren't even sure it's allowed. And to be clear, it is. But Dr Noonan says that peaceful death at home in our beds at a ripe old age that many of us hope for is rarely a solo effort.
00:08:37
Speaker 2: Dying at home often takes a team. It often takes not only support from your GP or your palliative care service, but your family and friends and your neighbours.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: She knows this firsthand. Last year, Dr Noonan's mum died at home.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: We brought mum home from hospital. She died at home and we were all there. So it's my brother and I, my father, who mum and dad were both in their mid-80s. The dogs, the food, the TV, the sounds of home, photos, the comforts, the smells, all of those things were a really important part of the experience for not only for mum, but for us as a family and the comfort that that brought, especially for our children who ranged from like 23 down to, you know, four.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: So what do you actually do if someone dies at home? If the death was expected, Health Direct says there's no legal requirement to call anyone straight away and you don't need to call an ambulance or the police. You can take your time. Sit with them. Say goodbye. and call family or a friend for support. And when you're ready, call their doctor or palliative care team. They'll arrange for a doctor to come. After that, you'll call a funeral director. They'll collect your loved one and pass the paperwork on to births, deaths and marriages. And if you're caring for someone who wants to die at home, ask their doctor about death at home documents, like a letter telling the ambulance service that the death is expected. But of course, if a death is unexpected and the person didn't have a terminal illness, call 000. And the paperwork is certainly a thing. People are often shocked at what they call death admin. Dr Noonan's research found that only 23% of us have written down our end-of-life wishes in an advanced care directive. About half of us have a will, and just 11% of us have sorted out what happens with our online accounts like our photos, social media and emails after we die.
00:10:43
Speaker 2: What we're hearing is people often feel a bit bad about the fact they haven't done it.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: Dr Noonan's advice for getting started is pretty low pressure.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: At the very least, having a conversation about it or talking... with your partner or your chosen family or someone about what you want. It doesn't matter what age you are. Having a will at any age is important, for example. And when we look at age groups, doing your will when you're younger is actually quite low. So have the conversation with people. And I would say, don't worry about getting it wrong. Just be gentle and thoughtful and playful and Find some soft ways into the conversation, like thinking about a TV show or something that might have a theme of death or dying or a funeral.
00:11:33
Speaker 1: And once you've thought about what you want, communication is really key.
00:11:37
Speaker 2: If you want to write down your wishes, you can write down your wishes at any time. But you must tell someone about it. Because think about those wishes, whatever they are. By the time those wishes are important, you can't speak for yourself. Someone else needs to know where those wishes are and someone else needs to know how to enact them for you.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: If you want somewhere to start, the researchers have built a tool called ReadyConnect. It's a short quiz that shows you what you already know, where the gaps are and links you to trusted resources. They also suggest two other ways to build your death literacy. One is have a conversation with someone close to you, like your partner, your best mate or your mum. And get involved in your community, whether that's a local event, volunteering or dropping a meal to someone who's caring for someone or grieving. And as for where to start, Dr Noonan says to begin with what matters most to you.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: What is most important to you at the moment? Is it family? Is it comfort? Is it being on your own? Is it being in the bush? Is it being near the water? Like what is important to you and what are your values? Because I think most of us do die as we've lived our lives. And I think that that's quite a neat way to kind of gently lean into it.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening today. For more news like this, please click follow on the quickie wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating and a review. It helps other people find us. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.
