This spoof is certainly is unusual. It struck me as deeply disturbing and liable to offend large number of people. There’s no question that it trivializes the suffering of the terminally ill and shows no respect at all for their plight.
However, I’m going to offer an alternative view. I do not know the work of The Chasers but, like good satire (which this sketch may perhaps be a bit too flippant to accomplish), it suggests several questions to the audience. Here are a few.
The closing question, the fictional charity’s tag line, is a valid one. Not in the (rhetorical) comedic sense being implied by the sketch, but as a subject for introspection: we spend a great deal of effort and money to make the last days of the terminally ill as pleasant as possible. Why? We know it to be the correct thing to do, but why, exactly?
The sketch is not really challenging the fact that these children should be taken care of and that at least some of their dreams should be realized before they die. I think everyone agrees these things are highly desirable.
The writers of the sketch seem to be impugning people (like the clearly farcical Make a Realistic Wish Foundation) who skimp and pinch pennies rather than bring happiness to a terminally ill patient’s final days. The extremely sensitive subject matter of the sketch ends up eclipsing other considerations.
Perhaps this was their intention, at which point we have to consider whether charities could not accomplish more and do more good (by volume, at least) if they lowered their own and their beneficiaries’ expectations somewhat. The extreme lowering of expectations in the sketch - a stick instead of meeting Zac Evron - is clearly ironical. I’m not sure what point they are trying to make - should we lower expectations slightly, or do we mock those who advocate doing so - but I credit this sketch for making me think about such issues when I otherwise would have been doing something else.
I have zero knowledge of this comedy group and I could be spectacularly wrong, but my guess is they are trying to out-swift Swift. This sketch seems to me a variation of A Modest Proposal, a satire that was also thought to be in horribly poor taste. It presents a group’s plight to the audience, then offers a shocking “proposal” that actually has utilitarian benefit - a strong reminder of the conflict between amelioration and utilitarianism. Swift’s style all but asked the reader to despise the writer for the callousness of his arguments; this sketch does exactly the same thing.
So rather than getting cheap laughs out of a sad situation they may actually be pointing out that there are a lot of concepts to think about and no easy answers. If such was The Chasers’ intent, however, I imagine that it would be lost on the majority of the audience.