The price for graves at Pine Lodge Cemetery is set to increase by $730 in new sections of the cemetery.
As of July 1, the right of interment for a standard lawn grave in an existing section of the cemetery is $2870.
However, for those being buried in any newly developed sections of the cemetery that open in the future, it will cost $3600.
The move to the new pricing for the future areas at the cemetery on the Midland Hwy has angered State Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell who said the price rise was one of several for burial costs in just over one year.
On July 1, 2024, the cost of a standard lawn grave rose to $2455 in line with a yearly statutory consumer price index (CPI) rise.
Remembrance Parks Victoria then applied to the Victorian Government to allow it to put its prices up by an average of 14 per cent in December last year after a price product review.
This was then followed by another annual price rise in line with CPI on July 1 this year.
Ms Lovell said that by “massively increasing” prices, it showed that the Trust’s board and chair were “completely out of touch, and don’t understand the financial pressure that families are under during a cost-of-living crisis”.
She said CPI price rises were supposed to cover any new sections of cemeteries, as well as existing areas.
“Yet here we are with another extraordinary price increase on top of the regular prices,” Ms Lovell said.
She said the changing prices also impacted funeral directors’ ability to provide pre-paid funerals, as prices had risen much more than would have been expected in that time period.
Remembrance Parks Central Victoria chief executive officer Lauretta Stace said the price for the newly developed sections was “not a price rise”, rather a price for newly developed products.
“Those new prices are based on new analysis of how we base our products and services,” Mrs Stace said.
Mrs Stace said the existing prices at the cemetery were “historically low” for rights of interment and interment, and that CPI increases and the increase in December last year for existing sections of the cemetery were not enough to keep up with rising costs.
She said prices had needed to rise more than 14 per cent in December, but the Department of Health had asked the Trust to cap it at that level.
“We’ve been affected by CPI and trying to adjust,” she said.
“We feel it’s irresponsible to sell public land at below costs.”
In the new sections which will be opened over the next year, Mrs Stace said standard lawn graves would be offered, as well as other more expensive levels that had more add-ons, such as vases or landscaped gardens around them.
“There will be a choice, where in the past they haven’t had that choice,” she said.
“We’re trying to give a choice on the popular range.”
Ms Lovell, however, said the price for graves in new sections came on top of what she called a series of operational, financial and governance problems at RPCV including the removal of ornaments and mementos from graves, and the change of layouts for headstones in one section of the cemetery — both decisions that were later reversed.
Ms Lovell said the Victorian Government needed to “do an investigation about the capability of the chair and the Trust”.