Hundreds of Australians, including war veterans and rough sleepers, are being buried in unmarked communal graves, often holding four or more people, according to a Guardian Australia investigation. The practice, used by state governments for those deemed too poor to afford funerals, has been described by relatives as “unspeakable” and “a disgrace”.
The investigation identified more than 100 unmarked graves across New South Wales and some in Queensland. Evidence from family, friends, the homelessness sector, cemetery registries, and aerial imagery shows the NSW government using bare stretches of earth at Rookwood cemetery in Sydney to bury the remains of four to six strangers together. Among those buried are war veterans, cancer sufferers, people with gambling addictions and severe mental illness, and migrants whose families cannot afford repatriation costs.
Failures in notification and policy
In at least six cases, authorities failed to contact friends, family, or support workers, or did not inform them of the use of unmarked and common graves. These failures are likely breaches of a NSW policy aimed at avoiding unnecessary distress to those who may have wished to make other funeral arrangements.
Chantel Dubsky, whose brother Roger Davies, a rough sleeper, was buried in an unmarked grave with four strangers at Rookwood without her knowledge, said: “It’s unspeakable. He should have had the opportunity to be laid to rest with his mother, his grandparents and the people he loved, at his home in Adelaide. He wasn’t just someone off the street – he was someone’s son, he was someone’s brother. He was my brother.”
Crosschecking names with homelessness services identified 18 individuals in the communal graves who had experienced homelessness. Two leaders in Sydney’s homelessness sector say they were never made aware of the practice and have not been given the chance to intervene to fund proper burials. The Rev Bill Crews Foundation, a homelessness charity, says it has repeatedly raised concerns with the state government but has been ignored. The Rev Bill Crews identified three of his clients among those in the communal graves but was not told about their deaths or impending burials. “It’s outrageous. We did not know – they would all have had a dignified funeral and a proper cremation, and their ashes would have been scattered in the sea,” he said. The foundation regularly uses its own funds to conduct funeral services for rough sleepers when it becomes aware of their deaths.
Veterans and government response
Two veterans of the Vietnam war, both Royal Australian Navy servicemen, were buried in unmarked communal graves in 2024 and 2025, despite a federal funding program from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to help pay for funerals of impoverished veterans. NSW policy recommends state health authorities approach DVA in such cases, but DVA was never asked for funding for these burials. A spokesperson said it has “not been approached to help fund the burials of destitute persons since 2020”.
The investigation prompted an apology from NSW Health, which flagged changes to improve the process. Health minister Ryan Park described the failings as “unacceptable”. In the first half of this year, a 17-metre stretch of earth at Rookwood was used to bury more than 40 people in unmarked communal graves, including a rough sleeper well-known to major homelessness services. Nothing marks the graves; inspections of hundreds of burials since 2010 show only about a dozen are marked by crosses or plaques, with no signs indicating the presence of graves. In Queensland, markings are generally not used for the smaller number of burials under its scheme, and communal graves are rarer there. This contrasts with Victoria, where each individual is given their own grave and a simple marking.
Past promises and ongoing concerns
The NSW government had previously pledged to stop the use of unmarked graves for destitute burials, following lobbying by Barbara Davis, who was never told that her foster daughter Christine Halpin had been buried in Rookwood in 1989. Davis and Christine’s biological daughter Jayne say they were told in 2013 that the use of unmarked graves would cease. The cemetery erected a “path of remembrance” allowing people to pay more than $800 for a plaque on a rock, about 1km from some gravesites, but this has been used in only a few dozen cases since 2020. Christine’s gravesite remains unmarked. “It is a disgrace,” Davis said. “Whether you’re a prince or a pauper, you deserve a decent burial site, even just with a wooden cross with your name on it.”
In another case, a young Fijian who came to Australia to play rugby in Leeton, in NSW’s Riverina region, was buried in a communal unmarked grave after dying of cancer in 2022. Paul Maytom, former Leeton mayor and now president of the Leeton Multicultural Support Group, who had previously helped raise funds from local Solomon Islander and Vietnamese communities for repatriation or proper burials, was not informed about the Fijian’s death. “There should be a point of contact when this type of thing happens,” Maytom said. “And you should never have a situation where someone ends up in an unmarked grave, particularly when there are community members who are willing to help pay.”
A NSW Health Pathology spokesperson apologised for the failings, acknowledging they meant the dead and their families and friends were not always treated with dignity and respect. “Families and friends who have lost a loved one face many challenges managing arrangements during a time of grief, and all deceased persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their financial circumstances. It is clear this has not always occurred with respect to the burials or cremations for deceased people without the financial means to pay for a funeral, and NSW Health apologises for the distress this has caused to those who have lost someone they love,” the spokesperson said.
NSW Health said it had made changes in 2025 and recent months, including giving NSW Health greater control in place of police, creating a dedicated six-person team within NSW Health Pathology to provide “alternative funeral arrangements and alternate sources of support for families and friends that may be willing to assist”, and improving relationships with religious, cultural, charitable, community, and government organisations to find funding for funerals. Ministers Park and Rose Jackson, the homelessness minister, said the dead and their families should be treated with respect regardless of financial circumstances. “Previous arrangements have meant that this has not always been the case, and that is unacceptable,” Park said. “Since early 2025, NSW Health has made significant changes to establish a more comprehensive and person-centred approach to ensure all deceased persons are treated with the respect and compassion they deserve.”
A spokesperson for Metropolitan Memorial Parks, which operates Rookwood general cemetery, said the NSW government did not fund it to provide grave markings for persons without means. MMP said destitute burials were not the only burial type using multiple interments in a single plot, rejected suggestions that those buried were placed between individual headstones, under walkways or in trenches, and said it had identified no legislation or regulation giving effect to the government’s 2013 promise to mark graves.
