Bulk bodies banned

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 23

Bulk bodies banned

NZPA Sydney A cut-price undertaking firm owned by a New Zealander, Mr Keith Russell, aged 42, has decided to instigate an interstate airfreight of bodies ‘by the container load” to beat a union ban on its business in New South Wales. A total ban on the company by the Funeral and Allied Industries Union has caused it to cancel arrangements for six funerals ‘halfway through.” ‘We are being denied access to chapels, cemeteries, and crematoria,” ,Mr Russell said. ‘We have therefore had to cancel all burials, but we intend to go ahead with cremations. ‘Sydney costs are so high

that we will be well able to freight bodies by air interstate for cremation and return the ashes to New South Wales, still saving bereaved families money,” he said. Mr Russell accused the union of failing to state its reasons for the ban, but believes the union is against the company conducting its own services. Funeral industry sources predict that the bans on Mr Russell’s company will spread interstate if he tries to move bodies. Mr Russell advertised for premises, ‘an unused church or hall,” where funeral services could be conducted. His advertisement, in the ‘Sydney Morning Herald,” said: ‘We came to N.S.W. to break the monopoly which

keeps the cost o r dying higher than any other place in Australia. ‘Now we have been excluded from the use of chapels at crematoria in Sydney. We are determined to fight on.”