Thursday, 14 November 2024

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:31): (1289) My adjournment matter for the Minister for Health concerns the cost of dying, which like everything else in Victoria is going through the roof. I am not talking about the government’s shocking stealth death tax with its vast hike in fees payable for probate registration – any estate valued at more than $250,000 will now pay more, with the largest paying six times more, up to $15,000. There is no way even in Victoria that the probate office can cost that much to run. It is a tax, pure and simple; it is a death tax. My question relates instead to cemetery trusts. These are not-for-profit organisations, but unfortunately that is no guarantee of good value for the user; in fact it is sometimes the opposite. When bureaucracies are not for profit, they are frequently monopolies too, and like any good bureaucracy they are inclined to grow, to expand, to add responsibilities and staff and to increase their empires. It is human nature, and with no serious market there is nothing to control them.

Flicking through one of my local cemeteries trusts’ annual reports, I was surprised to say the least. Last financial year two executive salaries were between $170,000 and $200,000, and one was between $260,000 and $280,000. That seemed an extraordinary sum to me for a job managing a small team with pretty constant demand, limited competition and fairly static former clients. But this year there is a whole extra executive salary – over $150,000 – and the highest earning employee has now jumped to the band from $330,000 to $350,000, an enormous increase. And this is not a total package – it excludes the cost of super. Other costs struck me too, and not just the net zero emissions plan or the carbon offset purchases being considered. The staff’s total air travel was 40,664 kilometres – for a local cemetery trust. This included a European study tour, which the annual report calls ‘an insightful look into the cremation industry in Europe’.

I do not wish to be too frivolous about this, because there is a serious point. With no competition and therefore no commercial incentive to keep costs down, what is to stop cemetery bureaucracies from continuing to grow? In the trust I referenced, revenue increased 15 per cent last year, money which comes from burial and cremation fees. The action I seek from the minister is a review of the structure of cemetery management in Victoria, including an assessment of the appropriate running costs and salary levels for management.