Pet burials in human cemeteries

The Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill 2025 overturns the previous ban on the placement and burial of animal remains in a place of interment.

Animal Justice Party and Northern Victoria MP Georgie Purcell initiated the change during the Committee Stage of debate on the bill in the Legislative Council.

‘This is an amendment that is basically drafted identically to a recent one that passed in New South Wales, and it would be bringing us into line with the change that they have just made,’ she said.

Ms Purcell said cemeteries had been forced to choose between complying with someone’s final wishes or complying with the law.

‘This has also meant that public cemeteries which are illegally burying pets with people are not recording the plots, which is leading to further risk down the line where a pet has been buried in a family plot and is not on the interment record – in future a different cemetery manager may tend to that plot and discover that someone has honoured that wish of someone,’ she said.

Previously, burying an animal in a public cemetery, even placing an urn in a coffin, was illegal.

The only legal way for owners to be laid to rest with their pets was to either be buried on private land with the owner’s permission or to be scattered with the ashes of a pet outside the gates of a cemetery.

‘This is a really important change because, as I said, this is currently already happening in a way that is not regulated, and it is causing issues with plot records down the line,’ Ms Purcell said.

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MP Jeff Bourman, who represents Eastern Victoria spoke in support of the new clauses in the Cemeteries and Crematoria Act 2003.

‘We lost our dog Leia a little while ago, and I spread her ashes with the ashes of my son, at different times,’ he said.

‘That is why I am big on this. I can see there is a very good reason why we spread them at the beach. I feel this is something people should be able to do.’

Shadow Health Minister and Southern Metropolitan MP Georgie Crozier sought clarification about potential impacts on health and safety and cemetery over-crowding.

Ms Crozier also questioned the practicality of animal burials in human cemeteries, if owners predecease their pets. 

‘I am looking at it from a health and safety impact and how that would impact not only those working in the funeral industry but, more broadly, the spread of disease within the community,’ she said.

‘It would not be a matter of storing the body in a separate place until a human passes, it would be a matter of a person having that request and already having a plot and the animal would be buried within it,’ Ms Purcell responded.

The change garnered almost unanimous support, only South-Eastern Metropolitan MP David Limbrick opposed it.

The Legislative Assembly agreed to it and separate amendments made by the Council and the bill has since received Royal Assent.