New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CEMETERIES AND CREMATORIA ACT 2013 - SECT 55

55 Re-use of interment sites and removal of memorials

(1) Subject to this section and the regulations, if a renewable interment right in respect of an interment site expires, the cemetery operator may at the end of the period of 2 years after it expires do the following--

(a) re-use the interment site to which the renewable interment right related,

(b) remove any memorial to a deceased person erected on or at the site.

(2) A cemetery operator must not re-use an interment site or remove any memorial to a deceased person on an interment site unless--

(a) the cemetery operator has sought the advice (if any) required by section 69 (2) of the heritage advisory committee for the cemetery concerned, and

(b) the cemetery operator has given notice of its intention to re-use the interment site or remove the memorial in the Gazette and in--

(i) a newspaper circulating throughout the State, or

(ii) a manner approved in writing by the Minister having regard to the object of bringing notices of that kind to the attention of members of the public to whom the relevant proposals to re-use interment sites or remove memorials may be of interest, and

(c) the cemetery operator has taken reasonable steps to give notice of its intention to re-use the interment site or remove the memorial to the holder of the interment right and each person (if any) shown in the relevant cemetery operator's register as a secondary contact with respect to the holder listed in the cemetery operator's register, and

(d) in the case of the removal of a memorial--the cemetery operator has taken reasonable steps to give notice of the steps that the person can take to reclaim the memorial.

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to an interment site on or at which a memorial of the following kind is erected--

(a) a memorial that is an item of local heritage significance or State heritage significance under the Heritage Act 1977 ,

(b) a memorial relating to a grave listed by the Office of Australian War Graves,

(c) a memorial in relation to a person who died from a prescribed infectious disease within the meaning of Division 3 of Part 8 of the Public Health Regulation 2012 .

(4) Subject to subsection (6), before an interment site is re-used after the expiration of a renewable interment right the cemetery operator must ensure--

(a) that any human remains of a deceased person (other than cremated remains) buried in the earth found at the site are placed in an ossuary box and re-interred at a greater depth or placed in an ossuary house or similar place, and

(b) that any cremated remains found at the site are returned to the holder of the renewable interment right or scattered in the cemetery, and

(c) any other requirements prescribed by the regulations with respect to human remains interred at the site are complied with.

(5) The cemetery operator must ensure that the human remains of a deceased person are dealt with in accordance with any cultural or religious practice applicable in the part of the cemetery in which the interment site is located when the human remains were originally interred.

(6) Despite subsection (1), an interment site may not be re-used by a cemetery operator unless--

(a) any human remains of a deceased person (other than cremated remains) that are interred in the site have been interred for at least 25 years, and

(b) the cemetery operator considers the body is in a sufficiently decomposed state to comply with subsection (4).

Maximum civil penalty (subsection (6) (a)): $27,500.

(7) The regulations may make provision for or with respect to--

(a) the re-use of interment sites and removal and disposition of memorials under this section, and

(b) the notices and authorisations required before any thing is done under subsection (1).