Northern Victoria Region
Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (14:02:232:): (1764) My question is for the Minister for Health regarding price increases for services offered by Remembrance Parks Central Victoria, who act as the cemetery trust for cemeteries in Bendigo and Shepparton. Several funeral directors have advised me that Remembrance Parks Central Victoria has proposed price increases across the 2022–23 and 2023–24 financial years that will result in funeral costs escalating by up to 270 per cent. Increases of this magnitude are unconscionable, especially when you consider the socio-economic status of both the Shepparton and Bendigo communities. It appears that Remembrance Parks Central Victoria have modelled the proposed price increases on prices set for metropolitan memorial parks, which fails to take into account the standard of cemeteries in regional centres and also that they do not compare with memorial parks in metropolitan Melbourne and that average household income is considerably less in regional Victoria. Will the minister take the concerns of my constituents into account and refuse the proposed price increases, which appear to be excessive and unconscionable, for regional cemeteries?