Title: State funded funerals: What happens to unclaimed and unidentified dead people in Australia?
Headings: Australia’s ‘unclaimed persons’: what happens to those who die alone?
true stories
Australia’s ‘unclaimed persons’: what happens to those who die alone?
Megan Palin
‘WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN I DIE?’
JOHN AND JANE DOE’S
STREET KIDS DUMPED IN UNMARKED COMMUNAL GRAVES
BABY WITH NO NAME: “ANGEL IN HEAVEN”
THE SOMERTON MAN

Content: The Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General is required to provide a “simple burial or cremation” to any deceased person whose assets cannot cover the cost of their funeral and whose relatives and friends also cannot pay. The state’s Burials Assistance Act 1965 states that funeral directors must provide “a properly made, conventionally shaped, stained and suitably lined coffin”. They are to conduct the funeral “in a proper and respectful manner” and provide either a gravesite or crematorium service. In 2012, there were 385 cremations or burials under the Burials Assistance Scheme at a total cost of more than $600,000. A NSW Health spokesperson told news.com.au the Local Health Districts were responsible for the processing and payment of destitute burials and cremations in their district. Rookwood Memorial Gardens and Crematorium operations manager Kevin Morgan said paupers’ funerals were “just a normal service people can attend if they wish”. “Sometimes there’s nobody that attends,” he said. “If you were standing in our carpark you probably couldn’t tell the difference between a normal funeral and a destitute person’s one.” An unclaimed person’s final resting place is dependant on instructions from “the applicant” — usually a funeral director — but most will end up “with their ashes scattered in the gardens or buried in an unmarked area”. Mr Morgan said the bodies were buried unless the deceased’s identity is known and they signed a form when alive to authorise and request cremation.