Fergus Wheeler: Death Without Debt spokesperson on the organisation's plan to help Kiwis bring funeral costs down

New data has revealed the average cost of a funeral in New Zealand has surged to $14,000 - and one charitable organisation hopes to help Kiwis bring these costs down.

Advocacy group Death Without Debt believes a DIY funeral can be done for little more than $1,000 - if people know how.

Convenor Fergus Wheeler says families could manage the process with no loss of dignity and for far less.

"Things like - moving a body around, not to embalm a body. You can register the death yourself, you don't need a funeral director to do that."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
So it turns out dying is a pretty expensive business.
The average cost of a funeral in New Zealand is
now fourteen thousand dollars, which seems crazy right Well, and
an effort to reign in the cost of volunteer organization
it's called Death Without Debt is holding DIY funeral workshops
around the country. Their spokesperson, Fergus Wheeler, is with me now,
thanks for your time, Fergus, good.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Morning, Good morning, Francisca.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hey, why are funerals so expensive?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, we let commercialization, Robert of our DIY mojo. We've
kind of lost the traditional knowledge that we used to have.
I think all so yes, sorry no, I.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Was going to say, have they always been expensive for this?
Is it increased over years?

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well, it's definitely going up as of late. And it's
hard to imagine, you know, sixty years ago when the
woman down the street who knew how to bodies did it,
probably for free. The undertakers sort of knocked together a
wooden box and you know, there they didn't have a
whole rest home with all its overheads to cover. You know,

(01:21):
the way we used to do death when they're with
churches or mud it was a community affair and it
wasn't a flash and pain respects was something that you
did not with money, but by being there and helping out.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Are you suggesting that funeral directors and those in the
industry are getting in the way and making it harder
than it needs to be.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Well, that guided, Well, there's a lot of people in
the industry with a genuine sense of vocation, but they've
got to pay their bills and they've got to meet
public demand, and the forces of commercializations just have their
own life. So actually the biggest problem, and is having
to the moment, it is the paperwork system. So as

(02:10):
cremation has got more common, the paperwork around cremation has
actually ended up being the main block and the people
holding that the people who are who should be solving
that problem are the public servants and the council owned crematoriums,
and so that's really where the problem lies.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
So it should be easier for a loved one to
be able to fill out that paperwork rather than relying
on other people to do that. Is that what we're
what we're we're looking for.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, well, actually, what we're saying is that when someone dies,
you know, the doctor comes and says, you know, they
died of a heart attack or the diet of old age,
or you know, whatever the cause, and then at that stage,
rather than saying to the family, look, I don't know
what happens now, just go and ask the funeral director,
we're saying that doctors who are sort of unconsciously slipped

(03:03):
into this problem over decades will provide what we call
duty of care and just spend a couple of extra
minutes telling the family, look, I'm going to do the
paperwork for you. I'm not going to get the funeral
director to do it. It's my responsibility because it's medical paperwork
after all, and then telling the family, look, it's perfectly

(03:23):
legal to be the funeral directors yourself. You know, you
can be the funeral director if you want. You can
hire a funeral director if you wish. You can be
the funeral director yourself, your family, or you can sort
of do somewhere in between. So it's really about it's
really about duty of care, giving people choice, informed consent,

(03:44):
that those sort of basic medical values that apply elsewhere
in the medical system, but have been forgotten after death.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Because is a DIY funeral easy to do.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Well on the practical level, Yeah, it's pretty simple. You know,
you can use your own station wagon for example, even
a hatchback as the hers is perfectly legal. You just
have to do it with respect and common sense. You know,
as pretty much everyone knows now. You can build your
own coffin or the coffin for someone else. You can

(04:18):
do the body care. So one of the big myths
we try and bust is that embalming is necessary. I mean,
it might be necessary if you want to hold the
body for ten days or something, but you know, most
of the time a body is okay at home for
three days with ice to call it down. So you know,
there's exceptions, and we don't want to sort of let

(04:38):
we don't want sort of painter. We don't want a
wall paper that sometimes. You know, a body can be
quite a deco decomposition process. You know that can happen
very fast. But you know, the know how was always
there sixty years ago. You know, there's we can get
back to that place and not have to rely on

(04:59):
these really expensive processes and not and actually do it
independently if we wish.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
How much can a funeral cost if you do it yourself?

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Well I did my mother's for eleven hundred and thirty
six dollars, so you know, and that was that was
with full dignity, full respect. That was you know, with
a with a service catering, you know, bring a plate
type catering. But it was, it was a it was
a great occasion. Yeah. We we transported her body ourselves.

(05:34):
I built the coffin, We ran our own service. You know,
we had a local you know, had friends who did
the music for us. You know, it was it was
great in.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
A community affair, right, which is lovely everyone contributing.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, everyone. And that's the thing that we sort of
we remind people of is that you know, at the moment,
you know, with the funeral directors doing all the work,
he sort of got the whole nation of DIY people
sort of trapesing around behind the funeral directors had nothing
to do. You know, people want to help, they want
to bring a plate, they want to help with a
often you know, they want to lend their station wagon
to transport the body. You know, it's it's what it's

(06:12):
sort of we'd encourage people to be gracious and just
accept that help bring in the friends, bring in the family,
and it's great for building long, long term community bonds.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
You know, Fergus, I believe that the workshops have been
really popular. Where can people find out more about them?

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Oh, we've got a website just www dot Death Without Debt,
dot org, dot m Z. We've also got Facebook, I
think too, but I don't actually handle that part of it.
So if you know how to use Facebook, do it.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, thanks so much for your time, Fergus, really appreciate it.
That was Fergus Wheeler from Death Without Debt.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live Don't Use Talk ZB from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio