DEAD UNLUCKY

There’s an old Irish saying: The longer you live, the sooner you die.

And I have often railed against politicians when they have been insensitive to the plight of old people and I have pointed out that the only difference between them and us is that they got there first.

Senator Amanda Vanstone, insensitively, bought into the issue of old people and dying in the federal election before the last one when she scoffed at Kim Beazley’s admirable idea that there should be GST on funeral costs. I agreed. That’s why I started calling her Senator Tombstone or Senator Gravestone. She was such a wonderful, compassionate, person of the people she represents that she scoffed:

“You only die once”.

Forget the fact that three hundred or four hundred dollars paid in GST could help financially ease the lifestyle of the grieving husband or wife left behind.

According to Vanstone: You only die once. Such compassion and understanding. The issue of death and funeral is back on the news today because of a story on the Melbourne Age – a horror story –[ about rogue funeral directors. Bodies being transported in unrefrigerated vans. Bodies stacked on top of each other in backyard sheds. A baby’s coffin thrown into the boot of a car for transport.

Another stillborn baby was reportedly stored in a domestic fridge and, in New South Wales, dead people were dressed for their funeral in the backyard of a private home.

And funeral directors are making a killing –scuse the pun – by charging up to two thousand dollars for polished chipboard coffins that really cost about 400 bucks.

Monday, November 15, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004