An Australian man who just five weeks ago won a landmark court case allowing him to refuse food and water has died from a chest infection.

Christian Rossiter died this morning, five weeks after the Australian state Supreme Court ruled a nursing home in the west coast city of Perth must respect the 49-year-old patient's decision to starve to death.

A series of injuries had combined to make Mr Rossiter a spastic quadriplegic last year, and he had described his life as "a living hell".

Mr Rossiter had asked his nursing home at least 40 times to stop feeding and hydrating him through a tube to his stomach, before the matter was taken to court.