Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Remembrance Parks Central Victoria

Report 2023–24

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:23): I rise to speak on the Remembrance Parks Central Victoria annual report for 2023–24. I actually thought that I had probably come to the end of speaking about this cemetery trust and to the end of my disappointment with the profound mismanagement of this cemetery trust, but once again they shocked me on 1 July. What we have had in the past year from the cemetery trust has been not one but four price rises. The shock announcement of the fourth price rise in a year for burial costs at Remembrance Parks Central Victoria raises further doubts about the trust’s leadership, the chair particularly and the board’s ability to govern this cemetery trust. There has been a massive hike in the price of standard lawn graves for new sections of the cemetery, and it will mean that grieving families face potential cost increases of over $1600 – a more than 86 per cent cost increase to bury a loved one in newly developed areas at RPCV cemeteries in central and northern Victoria, including sites in Greater Bendigo, Greater Shepparton and Donnybrook.

In 2024 RPCV raised their fees by the statutory CPI increase on 1 July. The cemetery trust then made the controversial move to further increase prices by 14 per cent in December 2024 after a price and product review, and that was followed by a third increase on 1 July 2025 in accordance with CPI. The CPI increase that is built into cemetery trusts is supposed to keep the costs of purchasing their products in line with the cost of living and in line with the cost of developing new sections of the cemetery, but this cemetery trust had not only the CPI increase on 1 July 2024 but also a 14 per cent increase in December, which they said was to catch up because they had fallen behind in keeping up with the cost of burials. They had their third increase for the year on 1 July 2025 in accordance with the CPI, but then a day later, on 2 July 2025, RPCV announced a fourth price increase in the form of a new and much more expensive fee structure for graves in newly developed sections of their cemeteries that open after July 2025.

There are new sections already being developed in Eaglehawk and in Pine Lodge. Standard lawn graves in all newly opened sections will now cost $3600, which is $1665 more than the standard lawn grave currently costs at the trust’s White Hills and Kialla West cemeteries. That is an 86 per cent increase. A standard lawn grave at Axedale will increase by $1180, or 48.8 per cent. At the remaining locations, including Bendigo, Eaglehawk, Kangaroo Flat, Pine Lodge and Donnybrook, the standard lawn grave will increase by $730, or 25.4 per cent. Funeral directors and family members caring for ageing parents are now deeply concerned that, as existing sections of the cemeteries quickly fill up, the current fee structure for those plots will soon no longer be available. Families seeking a resting place for their loved ones will then be forced to pay the new and much more expensive fees that will apply to all new sections of the cemetery.

This cemetery trust is completely out of control. They have no idea what they are doing. This massive fee increase, of course, follows a series of operational, financial and governance scandals at RPCV that I have outlined in previous contributions. Massively increasing the fees for standard lawn graves at RPCV cemeteries shows that the trust board and chair are completely out of touch and do not understand the financial pressure that families are under during a cost-of-living crisis. The current chair has overseen a series of operational, financial and governance scandals during her tenure but has avoided scrutiny by failing to table annual reports or hold annual general meetings. The Allan Labor government reappointed the chair just in time to announce a massive increase in fees, demonstrating Labor’s obsession with taking money from the pockets of Victorian families to cover its own financial incompetence. Labor cannot manage money, they cannot manage cemeteries and Victorians are paying the price.