Category: In the News

Covid-19 Inquiry: Families and businesses detail crippling losses, lost schooling and farewelling dying family
New Zealanders have spoken of the impact of the Covid-19 response on their lives and businesses, including crippling financial losses, children falling behind in schooling and struggles to farewell dying loved ones.
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The real story behind the video of a bicycle pulling a ‘dead body’ down a busy Auckland road
Intrigued by the mystery shrouded figure, Stuff made enquiries and discovered the person being pulled was definitely not alive.
Nor were they ever.
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Funeral costs in the spotlight
A funeral bill is one you never want to pay, but there's a push to make the whole ordeal cheaper and better.
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'Changing paperwork is not going to fix funeral debt': Association slams call to remove funeral directors as cremation middlemen
Funeral Directors Association chief executive Gillian Boyes said reducing the amount of paper work is not going to fix funeral debt for families.
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Life changes - and death changes, too
With New Zealand's first water crematorium opening for business today, President of the Funeral Directors Association Andrew Malcolm joins Emile Donovan to discuss how our attitudes to going out in style are changing.
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Eco-friendly deaths - how to have less of a final carbon footprint
Water cremation is now available in Christchurch from this week at Bell Lamb and Trotter funeral directors.
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How the cost of living is increasing the cost of dying
From the wages to the casket to the embalming fluid, Funeral Directors Association chief executive Gillian Boyes said every element of a funeral had gone up.
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The secrets, shame, and stories that led to unmarked graves
More than a century after Frank Renall reportedly beat John Henderson to death with his fists and a chair, both men lie in unmarked graves near the asylum where it happened.
More than 1700 other patients lie there in the same way: unacknowledged, unclaimed, and publicly unnamed.
Now though, that’s set to change.
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Water cremation a New Zealand first
In what is being called a significant change for the funeral industry, New Zealand’s first water cremation service is being offered in Christchurch from next month.
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