Maori in Western Australia are considering establishing a dedicated urupa (cemetery) because of the logistics of getting their dead home for burial.
A Ngati Porou church leader living near Perth, Reverend Kuzie Tuhura, says he knows of Maori families struggling with the $10,000 cost of sending loved ones back to New Zealand for burial.
Mr Tuhura says a local undertaker told him two Maori bodies were kept in the morgue for months because the relatives did not have the money to repatriate them.
He says the Cemeteries and Crematoria Association of Western Australia has approached him about establishing a urupa.
