A family's search ends in shock

Jayne Kinsolving spent years searching for her biological mother Christine Halpin, who died in a house fire in 1989 when Jayne was a month old. Researchers at the Salvation Army finally told her Christine had died.

Three family members in one grave

Christine, her sister Jessica and grandmother Patricia were buried together in an unmarked communal grave at Rookwood cemetery in Sydney because the state government deemed the family too poor to afford their own funeral.

Walking on graves in a swamp

Sixteen years after the burial, Jayne and her foster mother Barbara Davis visited the grave site. They waded through knee-high shrubs and water-logged soil to find metal stakes barely visible above overgrown grass.

Standing on the graves

When Jayne asked their cemetery guide where the graves were, he replied: "You're standing on them." She and Barbara realised they had been walking on grave after grave after grave.

“You're standing on them.”

Barbara's 16-year campaign begins

Barbara Davis, Christine's former foster carer, was furious that no one had told her about the unmarked grave or asked if she would fund a proper burial. She lobbied the government, wrote parliamentary submissions and went to the press.

A 2013 promise to mark graves

Barbara's campaigning secured a commitment in 2013 from the then Liberal government that all graves would be marked. She questioned why the state could not afford a simple cross with names on it.

“How much would it have cost to put a cross with their names on it? Why couldn't that have gone up?”

Hundreds still buried unmarked

A Guardian Australia investigation has identified hundreds of unmarked graves at Rookwood, often containing four to six people. A seventeen-metre stretch of graves dug in 2026 estimated to contain more than forty people has not a single marker.

Operator says no legal requirement

Metropolitan Memorial Parks, which operates Rookwood, said it had not identified a legislative or regulatory requirement to mark graves and that the government had not funded it to provide grave markings.

Families not told before burial

The Guardian found multiple cases where the state government failed to notify friends, family or organisations associated with the deceased, denying them the chance to intervene and pay for a proper funeral.

Health minister calls it unacceptable

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park described the failings as unacceptable and said his department would explore reforms, including emulating Victoria's model where individuals are buried with their own plot and marking.

“I think it's something that we need to do better.”

A path of remembrance falls short

The cemetery opened a path of remembrance in 2017 where families can pay eight hundred eighty dollars for a plaque on a rock. Only about a few dozen plaques exist for deaths after 2020, despite hundreds of burials in that period.