The year earlier, in 1995, he had introduced a voluntary euthanasia bill to the NSW Parliament but then premier Bob Carr said he believed it was impossible to put into law.

"At some point, if I need to, I hope that I can hold out my arm one day or one night and have a little needle which takes me off, quietly and peacefully after I've said my farewells," Mr O'Grady said in the Witness program. "That's how I'd like to do it."

Mr O'Grady told the Herald at the time: "I never want to go to hospital."

He was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and died in Sacred Heart Hospice in Darlinghurst on Sunday morning.

Most recently, Mr O'Grady made headlines in 2013 when he appeared as a witness at the Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into corruptly issued coal licences.