Officials have already been tasked with rewriting parts of the ACT's proposed voluntary assisted dying laws, with the government saying it intended to begin debating the bill in the first half of this year.
A parliamentary inquiry into the bill found the phrase in the bill that a person must be in the "last stages of life" and have an "advanced" condition was not clearly defined.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said officials were already working on amendments to make this clearer.
Unlike other jurisdictions, the ACT won't require an expected time frame to death in eligibility criteria. Instead, the bill says a person must be in the "last stages of life".
Several groups who gave evidence to the inquiry said the term could create uncertainty as different health professionals could have different views about what this means.
The government has confirmed they will change this.
\Voluntary assisted dying will be available to Canberrans 18 months after the bill passes the ACT Legislative Assembly and Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne has previously indicated she would like the bill to pass in the first half of 2024. This would mean voluntary assisted dying would be available to Canberrans by late-2025.
"I welcome the inquiry report and the detailed consideration the committee has provided to this bill and its implementation," Ms Cheyne said in a statement.
"It is the government's intention to begin debating the Bill in the first half of this year. Passage of this Bill is within the remit of the Legislative Assembly, not the government.
"Noting the report has been out for fewer than 24 hours, the government is considering the recommendations and comments."
The government has four months to respond to the committee's report.
Ms Cheyne said: "The government has been closely following the committee inquiry process, and has already reviewed all submissions and public evidence provided, in addition to participating in the inquiry itself. This has meant that we are well placed to consider and respond to the report and its recommendations in a timely manner, without compromising on affording it the appropriate attention and rigour."
But Ms Stephen-Smith did provide a clearer indication of the timeline, saying it would be debated "mid-year".
"We do expect we will be making some amendments so we will need to both respond to the report and be drafting those amendments," she told ABC radio.
"We will do that as quickly as we can but I don't want to timeframe on that right now because we only got the report yesterday."
"I expect by mid-year the Assembly will be in a position to debate this bill."
The Health Minister acknowledged this would mean some people who would want to access voluntary assisted dying over this time would not be able to but she said the implementation period was needed.
"There will be people in our community who will die in pain and suffering who will not have access to voluntary assisted dying in that implementation period and that's why we've chosen to try and implement as quickly as we can but we've also taken advice from clinicians that 18 months is the minimum that we need," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
The ACT was not allowed to legislate on voluntary assisted dying until late-2022 due to a ban from the Federal Parliament.
Ms Cheyne also took aim at Liberal members of the committee who inquired into the bill.
Ed Cocks and Leanne Castley believed the bill should not be passed in its current form, saying it needed to be brought more in line with laws in other states. They called the bill the "most ideological and extreme assisted dying legislation in the country".
"It is regrettable that the Liberal members have been so blinded by their impudence and ideology that some of their recommendations are non-nonsensical, impotent or both," Ms Cheyne said.
"The Canberra community deserved better from these members during the inquiry than such superficial ideological participation-something they have made so evident through preparing and releasing this report."
