Page 651 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 February 2020
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to have to travel hundreds of kilometres. The ACT does not have the same geography that gives rise to these problems.
The opposition support a large part of this bill, but we find it deeply concerning that the government is considering opening a crematorium pretty much across the road from an existing facility. It is also disturbing that the government has tens of millions of dollars of unfunded liability because it set up a trust system that simply has not worked. Money from the profits of the new crematorium—which is the growth area of funerals, with 70 per cent of all deaths being cremated, and growing—will go into a trust to fund existing and future government liabilities. It creates a second crematorium in the ACT, a public crematorium, unnecessarily operated by a government authority in direct competition with the private operator.
This government has taken a long time to get the southern memorial park up and running, but when it wants to fund its own liability it is quick to establish a crematorium, in competition with a private provider. This is supposedly to account for the religious and cultural needs of Canberrans, although, from what I have found out in my consultation, the evidence for this is slim. It is hard to see that this crematorium is being built for the purpose of helping religious groups to conduct their religious rites. If that were so it would be a good reason and we would support it.
I fear that this is a smokescreen to deflect us from the real reasons the government is entering into this marketplace—to try and make up for its past mistakes with respect to the trust fund. The government is using an entirely admirable objective—meeting the needs of cultural and religious groups—in order to do that. No-one would argue against that objective. That is what we all want, and we all support it. Unfortunately, the evidence to support that may be slim. The government is building this crematorium and keeping it in government hands, which will have a negative impact on a private provider, to make up for its past mistakes.
As I have said, we support this bill in principle, but it is important to outline our deep concerns with some aspects of it. Our concern is mostly about the government’s stated rationale for entering into this space, rather than about the bill itself. The government’s reason for doing that—what they have led us to believe—does not quite add up. I support the bill and I hope it will provide a better experience for cultural and religious groups that want access to funerals that better meet their needs. I certainly hope that is the case and that we do not end up with more problems.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (4.28): The Greens will be supporting the Cemeteries and Crematoria Bill 2019. In the interest of full disclosure, I mention that I was on the board of the ACT Public Cemeteries Authority for a year, in 2015-16. My views, of course, have been influenced by my time on that board. The bill makes some useful improvements to how cemeteries and crematoria are regulated and run in the ACT. It establishes objectives in the act that require a financially sustainable model for the management of cemeteries and crematoria, while meeting the diverse needs of the community.
First off, as a Green, I am disappointed that the environment was not mentioned in the objectives. Cemeteries are usually places that are managed for many centuries; thus
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