Twenty-seven NSW MPs have so far spoken in favour of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, which returned to the NSW lower house for a full day of debate on Friday. Sixteen MPs have said they are opposed.
The bill's supporters need 47 votes to secure its passage through the Legislative Assembly.
Castle Hill Liberal MP Ray Williams was overcome with emotion on Friday as he recalled his father's 1998 diagnosis of incurable liver cancer and his mother's death six years later from emphysema.
He also told the parliament about his high school best friend - "the bravest guy" - who died from a severe brain tumour, and his office manager who died from motor neuron disease in 2019.
Mr Williams said as "a lover of life" he would vote against the proposal.
A recurring theme amongst these people was a desire to live as long as they could. "Every one of them savoured every moment, every second of their life," he said.
Peter Sidgreaves, the Liberal member for Camden, said he was "deeply conflicted" as a Catholic who believed in conserving life.
But he said he would vote for the bill, after 68 per cent of people in his electorate said they supported it.
Labor deputy leader Prue Car said she was also a Catholic, but that meant approaching the world with compassion for others.
"I actually can't think of anything more compassionate than this ... It's voluntary," she said.
The parliament will sit into the evening on Friday after the debate was halted for over an hour due to technical issues with a broadcast from the Legislative Assembly.
"By the end of today, we should have an idea of whether or not we have a compassionate parliament in NSW," Dying With Dignity president Penny Hackett said on Friday morning.
NSW Treasurer Matt Kean and former deputy premier John Barilaro are expected to speak after lunch.
The bill will likely go to a vote next Thursday, when attention will then turn to debating suggested amendments.
Mr Greenwich said he was negotiating in good faith with a number of MPs.
"I'm also aware that there are opponents of the bill drafting up likely hundreds of hostile amendments to the bill," he said.
He said he was hoping for an orderly process that would see the debate wrapped up by next week.
"Ultimately, it will depend on whether colleagues continue to play games and filibuster and hold MPs back from getting back to their families and their communities," Mr Greenwich said.
If the bill passes, it would make NSW the last state in Australia to permit voluntary assisted dying.
Ms Hackett said the NSW bill was almost entirely consistent in every major respect with other states' laws.
"Amending those laws to make it more difficult for the people in NSW would be very unfair."
Premier Dominic Perrottet and Opposition Leader Chris Minns spoke against the bill last Friday.
The bill has a record 28 co-sponsors from across the political spectrum.
It restricts euthanasia to terminally ill people who would die in no more than 12 months. Two doctors will have to assess applicants, and the bill makes attempting to induce a person to apply for voluntary assisted dying a criminal offence.
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