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However,Labor will merge three of the existing Crown cemetery managers – Rookwood,Northern Metropolitan and Southern Metropolitan – into a single entity called the Metropolitan Cemeteries and Crematoria Land Manager.
Some existing cemetery trusts have been found to have financial liabilities of hundreds of millions of dollars and the audit argued merging them would “improve the collective financial and operational sustainability of the Crown operators” to allow them to secure more space.
But the audit also highlights the complexity of finding new land to bury the dead during an acute housing shortage in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
“Identifying suitable cemetery sites in Sydney is not a straightforward exercise. Conventional burial
practices and cemetery designs are land-intensive,” the audit found. “The cost of land in Sydney is high,and potentially suitable land is increasingly sought after for new housing supply and other priority uses.”
The audit reveals the government is exploring new cemetery developments,as well as weighing the need for new burial space “with other priority land uses such as housing” as it conducts a widespread audit of vacant government-owned land in NSW. It is also investigating the “potential purchase of new sites”,withsome estimates putting the cost of the land needed in western Sydney at $120 million.
“The NSW government is investigating multiple options including repurposing existing government land as well as potential purchase of new sites,” the audit states.
While it identified the Catholic trust-operated Macarthur Memorial Park in Varroville as having the potential to provide about 136,000 burial plots over 100 years,the project has faced fierce opposition from some community groups as well as delays. Although the audit identified it as “a good start”,it said “more supply within Sydney is needed”.
“What the information in this document makes clear is that urgent action is needed to address[the] burial supply pressures facing Sydney’s Crown cemetery sector,” it states.
The previous government’s plan to merge four public cemeteries under an entity called OneCrown sparked outrage within the Catholic sector leading tolegal threatsand the claim of an“attack on religion”.
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It led to a stalemate over the future of OneCrown,which Kamper blasted as a “disaster” created through “indecision and infighting”.
“We will not make the same mistakes. We have listened to the experts,we conducted an audit to get a clearer picture of the problems,and now we have acted,” he said
“This merger will provide certainty for the industry,staff and consumers and a clear path to better manage our cemeteries so that the city’s burial needs are met and we can identify new efficiencies.”
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