The Minns government’s efforts to put to rest the unholy brawl over Sydney’s grave shortage of cemetery space has moved up a foot, with minister for lands and property Steve Kamper saying authorities are now “fast-tracking the approval of a new, 136,000 plot Crown and cemetery at Varroville to help solve Sydney’s impending burial crisis.”
The announcement comes just a day after the New South Wales auditor-general Margaret Crawford issued an unprecedented special report lashing the Catholic Metropolitan Cemetery Trust (CMCT) for refusing to open its books for inspection, officially saying to ministers the organisation’s refusal should not be accepted.
The NSW Treasury had advised the previous government that CMCT was a state-controlled entity and thus required to open its books to the auditor, which was asked to look into the CMCT; the CMCT did not accept this.
The outright refusal to accept oversight by the auditor-general is problematic for the government and Treasury head Michael Coutts-Trotter because it sets a potentially dangerous precedent that enterprises operating on Crown land can just tell oversight authorities to simply take a hike.
It also necessarily makes Treasury’s advice wrong, or the agency impotent.
Ultimately, Kamper has the call on the issue as minister and appears to be trying to draw a line under the issue by calling a truce with the church and allowing CMCT to continue its operations outside the oversight of the auditor-general.
“We are getting on with the job of fixing the mess that the former government left behind,” a spokesperson for Kamper told The Mandarin.
“We are considering the issues that the Auditor-General has raised and the options available to the Government to address this matter.”
The previous government had sought to amalgamate Sydney’s four cemetery trusts into a single entity dubbed OneCrown because most were running out of space and were saddled up with debt.
The amalgamation was stridently resisted by CMCT and the Catholic church, which subsequently gained a commitment from Minns to allow a “two-operator” model; that is, the CMCT and everyone else that would have been in OneCrown.
Marketed as Macarthur Memorial Park by its developers — CMCT — the new Varroville burial ground is a sprawling 113 hectares that is promoted as “a world class, innovative and sustainable cemetery for all religious groups easily accessed by the M5 and M7.”
Property developers wanting to build dwellings for the living would also have been keen to get hold of the site, but it appears the shortfall of accommodation for the deceased won out on this occasion.
“Macarthur Memorial Park is the first new Crown cemetery to be built in Sydney in over 80 years,” Kamper said.
“Sydney Crown cemeteries are just years away from running out of burial plots, which is why we are getting on with the job, fast-tracking new cemetery space.”
A statement from Kamper said that “as well as affordable burials, Macarthur Memorial Park will provide 35 hectares of publicly accessible areas, peaceful walking tracks, six lakes, a café, sculpture park, community lawns and boardwalks.”
Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust chief executive Lauren Hardgrove similarly talked up the new Macarthur mega-mausoleum.
“There will be modern function spaces to accommodate both intimate gatherings and larger groups surrounded by scenic open landscape.”
“Macarthur Memorial Park will be an innovative, sustainable multi-denominational memorial parkland destination.”
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