Page 3093 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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CEMETERIES (AMENDMENT) BILL 1991
Debate resumed from 8 August 1991, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR DUBY (8.24): Mr Speaker - - -
Ms Follett: Single member cemeteries.
MR DUBY: Remarkably, the cemeteries in most places are, I think, a prime example of proportional representation, as those who are in there are a direct reflection of those who are eligible to get in there.
Mr Speaker, the Cemeteries (Amendment) Bill 1991 is a long overdue piece of legislation. In effect, as outlined in Mr Connolly's explanatory memorandum, this Bill changes the status of the Canberra Public Cemeteries Trust under the Audit Act 1989 from an authority "not required to keep accounts in accordance with commercial practice to that of an authority required to keep accounts in accordance with commercial practice".
The effect of this provision, of course, will be that the trust will be able to retain and invest funds it receives from the sale of grave sites and the provision of its services. People might not be aware that the Cemeteries Trust in the ACT each year receives a substantial stipend from the ACT Government to enable it to perform its necessary duties. One problem that has existed in the past is that when the trust has presold grave sites and received moneys - which is often held in trust for long periods of time - it has not been able to adequately invest and utilise those funds and, instead, that money has gone into Consolidated Revenue. As a result, of course, the trust has no separate income apart from the actual on-site cash sales which simply compensate for the costs incurred in that financial year.
That is clearly an unsatisfactory arrangement. The trust should be able to invest the funds that it receives from people who are, in effect, depositing funds today to provide for that inevitable occurrence for all of us at some time when we are dispatched to the great unknown. What this does, of course, is allow the trust to act as any normal business would. It is a very sensible amendment. It enables the true accounting position of the trust to be taken into account by government in its planning; and it also will hopefully, as I said, enable a reduction in the amount of funding that is required from the Consolidated Fund each and every year.
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