Tuesday, 10 September 2024

Companion animals

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:21): (1122) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is to allow for companion animal interments in cemeteries. Currently it is illegal to have your beloved companion animal’s body or cremated remains buried in a human cemetery. It is often a dying wish of owners to have their pet, once passed, buried alongside them. As we all know, Victorians view their furry friends as part of their own families. Yet upon their death, pets are cast out from cemetery services and separated from their families – an agonising pain for all involved. Funeral directors are having to break the law, sneaking urns of pets’ ashes into coffins. An elderly man sought to bury his beloved deceased dog next to his wife’s grave. The couple had their dog for 16 years together. They were never able to have children, so this little dog was the only family this man had. All he wanted to do was bury their fur child alongside his wife. I know I myself could not refuse this man, in the greatest grief of losing his entire family, and tell him he must dispose of the dog’s remains elsewhere. But this is the reality that funeral directors around this state are facing every day. The need for this service is so high that such practices have become commonplace despite cemeteries having to risk penalties for doing so.

No-one is asking that this be free. Victorians are simply asking that their family stay together. For all of the unconditional love they give us and the bonds we share, the very least we can do is let them lay in eternal rest together. Families are otherwise having to dispose of their companion animal or create backyard burials. However, the decaying bodies and toxins of euthanised animals pose serious risks to other animals for up to a year after. Pet crematoriums are currently unregulated. There are no laws preventing multiple animals being cremated together and the owners being sent back a mixed bag, so to speak. We have also seen racing greyhounds who have disappeared off the register wind up in crematoriums, with their remains mixed in with other companion animals, removing all evidence of their death. It is a simple request to let the dead rest in peace with their loved ones and to have a common place for the living to attend to their losses. Victorians are just asking that our beloved furry friends that we share our homes, hearts and lives with be granted the same respect and place in their death. I ask the Minister for Health to rid us of this heartless law, legalise the joint burials of companion animals with humans and regulate to protect the proper practice of animal cremation.