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Funeral Servicea guide published by Dotto

When a funeral needs something different

Funeral Service is a guide to the funeral itself in five situations that ask for something different: a baby who was stillborn or died at birth, a death overseas, a family that cannot pay, Sorry Business, and an Aboriginal burial in a NSW cemetery. It is written and published by Dotto, from official pages listed at the foot of each guide.

Layers of unbleached cotton cloth, folded and stacked, seen close up
Unbleached cotton, folded. Photo by spectagal on Pixabay

The five guides

  1. 1A funeral for a babyTime with a baby before the funeral, the hospital’s mementos, taking a baby home, the burial and cremation rules that name babies, the Stillborn Baby Payment, and support.Queensland, Victoria, NSW and national
  2. 2Bringing someone home after a death overseasWhat each border asks for, carrying ashes home, papers and belongings, and the journey the other way for someone who died here.National, South Australia and Victoria
  3. 3Funeral AssistanceSA, and when a body goes unclaimedSouth Australia’s two kinds of public funeral help, whose means are counted, what to gather, and Western Australia’s rules for an unclaimed body.South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria
  4. 4Sorry Business and the funeralWhat official pages say about mourning, the name and image of the person who died, who tells the family, and time off work.National, NSW, Queensland and WA
  5. 5An Aboriginal burial in a NSW cemeteryWhat a NSW cemetery’s licence requires, and what the regulator’s guidelines describe about the plot, the day and the years after.NSW

Phone lines, each from its owner’s page

These are the numbers the guides use, each read on the page of the organisation that answers it.

Consular Emergency Centre
From overseas +61 2 6261 3305, or within Australia 1300 555 135, at any hour, for a death overseas
Red Nose Grief and Loss Support Line
1300 308 307, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Funeral AssistanceSA
1300 762 577
Bereavement Assistance Program (WA)
Free call 1800 854 925

How the guides are written

Many of the rules in these guides belong to one state or territory, so every section of every guide is labelled, just above its heading, with the places its rules come from. Where a page was written for someone other than a family, such as hospital staff, employers or cemetery operators, the guide says so, because that changes how its advice should be read.

Each guide answers its question in its opening lines, then goes into detail. Figures carry the date they were read, and phone numbers come only from the page of the organisation that answers them. None of it is advice for a particular family: for that, the official bodies named in each guide are the place to ask.