New Minister for Cemeteries, Steve Kamper, risks breaching the NSW Government’s direct dealings guidelines and a referral to ICAC over promises made to the Catholic Archdiocese before the March election. Callum Foote and Michael West report on the battle for control of Sydney’s cemeteries.
To borrow from The Who’s classic rock song, Won’t Get Fooled Again, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”, the Catholic hierarchy of the new Labor government under Chris Minns finds itself with the same grave challenges as the former government of Dominic Perrottet.
As Sydney runs out of cemetery space, the five-year-long battle for control over $5bn in precious cemetery land is still raging. To distil, the Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (CMCT) is vying for control of the assets, yet both parties agree in principle (if not in spirit) that proper governance, competitive tender, should prevail. As the Catholics pile on the pressure, both are caught between probity and politics.
Labor committed before the Election to a 2-operator model yet seems now to be backtracking, which puts the government at risk for breach of direct dealings guidelines and a potential referral to ICAC. And the clock is ticking because the CMCT is now still operating under an act repealed in 2018 and the Trust will cease to exist at the end of this year.
The old Labor testament
In an article in the Catholic Weekly back in July 2021, Steve Kamper argued that the Catholic Archdiocese should be exempt from the NSW Government’s direct dealings guidelines, which require any leasing of government land to be via a competitive tender.
The Catholic Archdiocese has previously demanded long-term leases of Crown Land cemeteries worth hundreds of millions of dollars be granted to the Archdiocese without tender. The previous Coalition government refused such demands after determining that the Catholic Archdiocese was not uniquely placed to operate cemeteries.
Since 2018, NSW Government departments have been warning successive Ministers that all proposals by the Catholic Archdiocese have been inconsistent with the direct dealings guidelines.
The new Labor testament
Yet things have changed a little since the Minns government swept to power. Steve Kamper responded to MWM questions declining to guarantee that any future cemetery structure would be compliant with the guidelines, instead: “Direct dealings guidelines will be taken into account as the government considers options for the design of a two-operator model.”
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Steve Kamper has also refused to rule out any leasing of Crown land or the transfer of more than $160m in perpetual maintenance funds to the Catholic Archdiocese as part of the new industry structure.
Long-term industry insiders have told MWM that any such arrangement would result in a referral to the ICAC as the Crown assets represent a significant transfer of value from the NSW taxpayer to a non-government entity, being the Catholic Archdiocese.
According to one:
“Kamper is playing Russian roulette with his political career and does not seem to realise it. The deal done with the Archdiocese prior to the election is in direct conflict with ICAC’s own direct dealings guidelines.
Kamper will essentially be privatising the sector to the Catholic Church by granting long-term leases, which was the same proposal as in 2017.
In 2017, the Catholic Archdiocese, in conjunction with Australia’s largest private cemeteries and funerals operator InvoCare, put forward an unsolicited proposal to the NSW Government for a long-term lease of all Crown cemeteries in return for a payment of between $700m and $1bn. The NSW Government rejected the proposal on the basis that any such arrangement would need to be via a competitive tender.
Kamper has also declined to allow the NSW Audit Office to audit the accounts of the Catholic Metropolitan Cemetery Trust, a NSW Crown Land Trust, as the Archdiocese refuses to accept that it is a controlled entity of the NSW Government.
So, it is a mess, as many observers have noted. It is also worth noting that a Supreme Court decision in December confirmed that cemetery assets are government and not that of the religious denominations of the originating Rookwood Trusts.
Time is running out for a decision on the new structure. The regulation ensuring the existence and continuation of the CMCT expires in early 2024 (Feb/March), any new structure would need to be put in place well in advance of this.
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Callum Foote was a reporter for Michael West Media for four years.
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.