Cremation and ashes in the ACT

D.1Cremation in Canberra

Canberra Memorial Parks writes that cremation has grown more popular over the past decade, citing its cost, a smaller carbon footprint and the many choices for interring ashes. It adds that cremation is now more common in Australia than traditional burial.

D.2What the Act covers

The Act’s dictionary gives cremation a wide meaning: it includes alkaline hydrolysis and other ways of breaking down human remains that do not use fire. The same dictionary counts a stillborn child and fetal remains as human remains, and defines fetal remains as all or part of the body of a dead fetus, other than a stillborn child. Cremating human remains anywhere other than at a crematorium is an offence, with a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units, 6 months’ imprisonment, or both.

Moving a body is regulated too. Transporting human remains that are not in an acceptable container or acceptable wrapping is an offence, with a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units. At Gungahlin, Canberra Memorial Parks says the identity of a person’s remains is guaranteed from the moment the funeral director delivers them to the crematorium until the ashes are interred.

D.3Before a cremation can happen

The application goes to the licensee of the crematorium. The Act also deals with another matter around a cremation.

When a cremation can be stopped

The Minister or a magistrate may prohibit a cremation at a crematorium. The Act allows that only if the Minister or magistrate is satisfied the cremation would:

• be reasonably likely to be dangerous;
• create a risk to health or safety; or
• hinder an investigation under a territory law.

When the coroner has the person in care, the timing of release governs everything else; when a death goes to the ACT coroner sets that out.

D.4Collecting the ashes

Two timeframes apply, and they do different jobs. Canberra Memorial Parks says family and friends may collect ashes from the Gungahlin Cemetery office 48 hours after the cremation. The Act sets the legal duties of a crematorium’s licensee: notice within 7 days after the cremation that the ashes are ready, then 3 years from the day of that notice during which the licensee must keep them available to the person who applied for the cremation.

D.5Where ashes can be placed in Canberra’s cemeteries

Ashes can be interred in set-aside areas at Woden, Hall and Gungahlin cemeteries, in a family grave that already exists, or scattered in a dedicated area at Gungahlin Cemetery. The set-aside areas offer different allotments:

Ashes can also go into an earth grave, for a fee, and there is no limit on how many. Some allotments built for burial take ashes as well: at Gungahlin, the Olive Grove and the family estates both do. Those allotments are described in burial in Canberra’s public cemeteries.

D.6Taking ashes somewhere else

Ashes can be handed back to family or friends to scatter somewhere that mattered, such as the town where the person was born, or near relatives buried outside the ACT. Canberra Memorial Parks suggests asking the local council first if the place is public, because permission is normally needed, and on private land the landowner’s permission is required.

D.7Moving ashes after they are interred

Under the Act, cremated remains stay interred in perpetuity unless they are disinterred in the way the Act allows. A person can apply to the licensee of the facility to have them disinterred, and the licensee may agree only if satisfied that the person applying is a family member of the person who died and is over 16.

The death itself is registered with Access Canberra once the cremation has taken place; registering a death in the ACT explains how.