By Xavier Smerdon
WERRIBEE residents are uniting to clean up the “disgraceful” and “unsafe” Werribee Cemetery with a day of community action.
Member for Tarneit Tim Pallas, who is organising the event, said it was time residents showed the government that the cemetery is important to them.
“This will be a day of community action to highlight what a disgrace this cemetery is,” Mr Pallas said.
“They (the Liberal government) really do need to take some action to make sure the dead are afforded a proper goodbye.”
Star reported on 1 March that residents were becoming frustrated with the state of the grounds with long grass and weeds taking over many of the graves.
CEO of the Greater Metropolitan Cemetery Trust, which took over as manager of the cemetery in March last year, Liz Riley said then that the poor conditions were caused by inclement weather.
“The current condition has been caused by unusual weather condition impacting on our regular maintenance schedule,” Ms Riley said.
But almost a month on, the weeds and grass are still out of control and some graves are even subsiding.
“This is not an attack on the work staff,” Mr Pallas said.
“The idea of a day of action is to embarrass the Trust and the Minister responsible, David Davis.”
Joe Ripon, who’s wife is buried at the cemetery said his daughter had to bring her own whipper snipper to tidy up her mother’s grave.
“I can’t understand why we have to do this,” Mr Ripon said.
“You can see for yourself the mess they have made.
“If we knew it would be like this before, we wouldn’t have buried her here.”
The working bee will be held on Saturday 2 April from 10am onwards and a free barbecue will also be available for helpers.
