TRIGGERDeath of immediate family member; estate and admin
COHORTS MOST AFFECTED
DURING
01
Services Australia
Bereavement Payment; Centrelink notification
Births Deaths and Marriages (state)
Death registration; cause of death certificate
State coroner
Coronial process where applicable
AFTER
02
Australian Taxation Office
Final tax return; super death benefit
FIRST YEAR
03
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
My Aged Care exit
Local council
Cemetery; pet rehoming; rates
Trigger: death of an immediate family member; estate, super, tax and admin follow. ~190,000 deaths/year.
Bereavement is the most-cited example of bad whole-of-government UX. After a death, families navigate 20+ separate agencies — ATO, Centrelink, Medicare, super, registries, electoral roll, banks, utilities — each with their own form, evidence demand and timeline. There is no national 'tell-government-once' for deaths. Families do this work in the worst weeks of their life.
Activities. Palliative-care decisions. Advance Care Directives. End-of-life conversations. Possibly home-care package level shifts.
Departments touched. State health (palliative); Department of Health, Disability and Ageing; local council (community palliative).
Pain. Palliative-care availability uneven. ACDs honoured patchily. End-of-life-choices laws vary by state.
Activities. Death pronounced. Funeral director engaged. Death registered with state. Cause-of-death certificate. Possibly coronial process.
Departments touched. State Births Deaths and Marriages (registration); state coroner (where applicable); state hospital or aged-care provider.
Pain. Coronial wait times. Funeral cost (~$10k median).
Quote. Representative theme from coroner-court submissions and Aged Care Royal Commission: "They told me she'd died over the phone. No follow-up. Just go and pick up her things." (illustrative — pattern documented in multiple aged-care-failure inquiries).
Activities. Notifying Services Australia (Centrelink, Medicare). Notifying ATO. Notifying super funds. Probate. Updating utilities, banks, insurer, electoral roll. Possibly organising tenant exit if person rented.
Departments touched. Services Australia (Bereavement Payment, Centrelink notification, Medicare); Australian Taxation Office (final return, super death benefit); Australian Electoral Commission; Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (passport cancellation); state revenue (land tax); local council (rates, cemetery).
Pain. Notifying 20+ separate agencies. Each demands a death certificate (originals). Centrelink relationship-status bereavement-payment paperwork heavy. Joint accounts can be frozen for weeks.
Quote. "I had to prove my partner had left. They wanted bank statements, lease terminations, statutory declarations." — Single parent, Parenting Payment applicant (Citizen Voice 2025, Centrelink — adjacent: same evidence-burden dynamic appears in bereavement claims).
Ideas. Bereavement one-form (i007); tenancy-after-sorry-business (i021).
Activities. Probate. Estate distribution. Tax-return finalisation. Continuing grief support. Possibly downsizing or moving.
Departments touched. State Supreme Court (probate); Australian Taxation Office; banks; super funds.
Pain. Probate cost + delay. Tax-on-super complications for adult-child beneficiaries. Ongoing grief support thin and not Medicare-rebated past initial.
What's happening. Widowhood, single-parent transition, identity rebuilding. For First Nations families, sorry-business obligations span longer than bereavement leave allows.
Pain. Bereavement-leave entitlement small. Sorry-business protections for housing tenancy thin.
Ideas. Bereavement one-form (i007); tenancy-after-sorry-business (i021).