Join the fight to make dying more affordable
Our mission
Death Without Debt NZ is dedicated to making dying affordable so the cost of dying doesn’t add to the burden of grief.
In the current Death, Burial and Cremation review we currently have a 1 in 60 year opportunity give New Zealanders a meaningful choice when it comes to hiring a funeral director or not.
We have put together a ten step plan to tackle funeral debt.
Our work is supported by the likes of Community Law, the Salvation Army and other organisations concerned with human rights and poverty.
All our work is voluntary. We have no financial interests in the funeral process.
We welcome the support of individuals and organisations.
Read our 10 step plan to tackle funeral debtHow we help
- We lobby for legislative changes so that N.Zers are freed from dependence on the funeral industry to do basic paperwork and are not tricked, pressured, or bullied into paying more than they need to.
- We provide digital and paper resources and run workshops to empower individuals to make informed decisions about funeral planning and expenses.
- We gather political support from individuals and groups.
Join us
Together, we can put things right.
Join Death Without Debt NZ in our mission to make dying more affordable and ensure that every New Zealander receives the dignified farewell they deserve. We welcome you to join hundreds of others working to make funerals more dignified and affordable.
Play your partOur working group
Forrest Chambers is a prison chaplain, school trustee, coffin maker and back-blocks farmer from Levin. He has four daughters.
Melanie Humphries-Connolly is an End of Life Doula, Registered Nurse (RN) and co-facilitator of the Hutt Valley Death Cafe and lives in Porirua..
Krista Fullerton is a conservation contractor, mother of four and active in her Levin community.
Te Roopu Moana is an experienced embalmer and funeral director. She is a passionate advocate for the future of tangihanga in Aotearoa. She lives in the Wairarapa
Nicky Walker is a health professional with a longstanding concern around poverty and funeral expenses. She lives on the Kapiti Coast.
Fergus Wheeler Prior to Death Without Debt, Fergus had a background in public interest advocacy, including alcohol law reform and environmental issues. He had no idea he would end up working on funeral legislation. Fergus lives on the Kapiti Coast.
Suzanne Chelius is an end of life doula in the Manawatu.
Marg O-Connor is deeply involved in the Nelson-Richmond community and has first hand experience helping families deal with crippling funeral bills.
Three Principles
By Right, Ordinary People should be able to negotiate pre-cremation and burial paperwork requirements
Doctors’ Conduct Should Align With The Caring Values of the Medical Profession.
Individuals, Families and Communities need to take responsibility for staying out of financial trouble.
How we got started
Our website’s bellbirds are in honour of those that kept Betty Wheeler company, fluttering outside her window in her last days in the winter of 2019.
Betty, a woman who devoted much of her life to community service, was denied the affordable, dignified, community-organised funeral she wanted by a negligent medical system and ruthless funeral directors. You can read an account of the extraordinary dysfunction her funeral process uncovered here.
When Betty’s son started digging into why the system had failed, he found almost everyone involved in the pre-cremation and pre-burial process had unthinkingly defaulted to the funeral industry’s commercial interests. The dysfunction extended well beyond the medical profession and their staff, deep into the public service, local councils, to hospice and beyond. Few, if any, of these people were profiting from their behaviour but none were prepared to take responsibility.
One of Betty’s friends, the widely-respected former leader of the Green Party, Jeanette Fitzsimons, contacted the family when she heard about their ordeal and the disrespect they had encountered. She alerted them to a review of Burial and Cremation legislation. The Review had begun with the Law Commission and was now being conducted by the Ministry of Health. And so Death Without Debt was formed.
The first phase of the campaign to make dying more affordable began in 2020.
We found both the Law Commission and the Ministry of Health (MoH) had neglected to look at why the funeral industry enjoyed a captive market.
Death Without Debt negotiated with the MoH to have these, and other vital issues included within the scope of the review. As of October 2023 the MoH have provided no assurance they understand or care about these fundamental concerns and repeatedly fail to show up for scheduled consultation as directed by the Minister of Health.
Death Without Debt is working with Community Law, the Salvation Army and other organisations concerned with human rights and poverty. All our work is voluntary and we have no financial interests in the funeral process. We welcome the support of individuals and organisations.
Our aim is simple: To ensure everyone has the right to an affordable and dignified funeral process.
We dedicate our work to the memory of Betty Wheeler who deserved better and to all those individuals in Taupo and Turangi’s medical community whose indifference brought to light a national disgrace.
Arohanui
10 steps to busting funeral debt
Our manifesto. Extending duty of care is the first step
DIY funerals
Workshops are coming to your part of the country. Order our step by step guide to a diginified and affordable funeral.
For doctors and nurses
We have a fix that is as simple as it is beautiful.
Support our work
Help get us this campaign over the line. Strength is in numbers.