General information, drawn only from official pages, each written for a particular reader: the Fair Work Ombudsman’s fact sheet for employers, Cemeteries & Crematoria NSW’s guidelines for cemetery and crematorium operators, and Queensland Health’s guidelines for its hospital staff.
National · Queensland
What it covers
The Fair Work Ombudsman describes Sorry Business as an important time of mourning, carrying responsibilities and obligations to attend funerals and to take part in other cultural events and ceremonies with the community. It reaches beyond a death in the immediate family: most First Nations people have clear cultural obligations around the death of extended family and of people with kinship or community ties. A community may also hold Sorry Business when someone is ill or imprisoned, or to mourn a lost connection to land.
The fact sheet also explains why attending matters: taking part, including going to the funeral, ensures the person’s spirit is properly put to rest, and if someone stays away, or the funeral is not done according to culture, the spirit may cause that person problems.
Queensland Health asks its staff to remember that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are two distinct and diverse cultures, and that customary practices vary between and within groups. It also notes that “passing” is generally the more accepted word when talking about death.
National · NSW · Queensland
How long it lasts
There is no set time. Ceremonies and mourning periods depend on community custom and may go on long after the death, the Fair Work fact sheet says. The NSW guidelines record one ending as some communities know it: “In some communities, Sorry Business is finished after the first rain has washed the person’s footprints from the earth, allowing them to transition to the next place on their journey.”
For Torres Strait Islander people, the same guidelines say, customs after a death may last five years or more, and can include a memorial opening or unveiling. In rural and remote Queensland, Queensland Health notes, a whole community may grieve, and businesses may close for a time out of respect.
NSW · Queensland
Names, photographs and voices
Three parts of an ordinary funeral carry a name, a face or a voice: the printed order of service, the photographs, and any recording. Queensland Health’s guidelines say it can be taboo in Aboriginal culture to say, and in some cases to write, the name of a person who has died, and that images or broadcasting the person’s voice may be against protocol and cause serious offence. Where that applies, they say, the name may go unspoken for a long time, from several months to years.
The NSW guidelines put the practical rule in one line: “A deceased person’s name or image should not be used without permission from the family.” The guidelines return to it where they discuss names: “Always check with the family if they are comfortable with the deceased person’s name being used.”
Queensland · national · NSW
Who tells the family
Queensland Health tells its staff that contacting the next of kin after a death is not always correct practice, and that it is culturally inappropriate for a non-Indigenous staff member to be the one who tells them. In the Western Island group of the Torres Strait, certain in-law relatives take on a role known as the Marigeth, or Spirit Hand.
Two official pages point to help inside the health system. The Raising Children Network suggests that a family’s care team may be able to connect them with the local Aboriginal liaison service, and the NSW Government says Aboriginal families and communities can reach their local Aboriginal Health Unit through the local hospital or health service.
Queensland · NSW
Around the funeral
Queensland Health describes two customs that may follow a death in Aboriginal practice and help the spirit on its journey: the name not being spoken for a long period, and a smoking ceremony, including the smoking of the person’s belongings and home. Family members may ask for a lock of the person’s hair, usually in private. In Torres Strait Islander culture, the family sometimes comes to the morgue the day before the burial to dress the person, with only women present for a woman and only men for a man.
The NSW guidelines add that some Aboriginal families may not want a Christian minister or undertakers at the burial or cremation, and that attending the funerals of kin and community is a cultural requirement, so large gatherings are common. What NSW cemeteries are asked to make room for is set out in an Aboriginal burial in a NSW cemetery.
National · NSW · WA
Work, and the journey home
Compassionate leave under workplace law covers a death in an employee’s immediate family or household, and some other circumstances too, such as when one of them develops a life-threatening illness or injury. The Fair Work Ombudsman encourages employers to support time off for Sorry Business that involves other people too, and notes that some awards may allow First Nations employees unpaid ceremonial leave.
The NSW guidelines say Aboriginal people in NSW prefer, where possible, to be buried on Country. Where a family cannot pay, Western Australia’s Bereavement Assistance Program may, in exceptional circumstances, fund the return of an Indigenous person to their homeland. It considers this only once it has approved the family’s application, its contracted funeral director is conducting the funeral, and the family has shown it has tried every other way to fund it; it does not fund transport across state borders.