Council to fight new burials tax
By Tim Howard
Clarence Valley ratepayers are paying the bill for a metropolitan shortage of burial plots that has forced a new burial tax to be levied across NSW, says mayor Peter Johnstone.
At the July meeting of Clarence Valley Council the mayor put up a mayoral minute calling for the government and Minister for Lands and Property Steve Kamper to reverse a decision which has already been included in the council’s fees and charges for the coming year.
“The government has imposed a cost of $156 per burial, $63 per ash interment and $41 for cremations across the whole of NSW,” Cr Johnstone said.
He said the motivation for the tax was a lack of land for burials in Sydney that had sent the cost of burials skyrocketing.
Cr Johnstone was also unsure how the government could set a cap on these costs.
“They’ve set up a regulator to try and control those costs,”he said.
“To me, it’s unclear how the regulator will be able to control those costs, because the land is limited.”
“But this regulator is not something that’s needed by our community, yet our community are being forced us to pay for this.
“It’s not something that we as a council will be paying, but people in our community will be paying because we have to pass it on to them.”
He said other councils across regional NSW felt the same way and this mayoral minute had been compiled as part of an advocacy campaign against the decision.
The mayor said if the council passed his minute it would most likely be the first to do so.
Former mayor Ian Tiley was an enthusiastic supporter.
“I think it goes without saying that this council and councils across the state have large scale responsibilities and inadequate resources to properly maintain our cemeteries as they are,” he said.
He said during his time as mayor he was approached by a number of communities with complaints their cemeteries were under maintained.
Cr Tiley said didn’t see how this tax would overcome this issue.
“This legislation probably won’t help that unless the extra funds are hypothecated to councils and to cemeteries maintenance,” he said.
Cr Tiley also brought up another issue.
“Some people pre-pay for their allotments and the council has no way, or will have no way, I suspect, of recovering the additional costs from those people who bought their plots years ago.”
Councillors voted unanimously to support the motion:
That Council:
- note that the NSW Government has announced a new cost shift onto Council and our community, by imposing a new tax on burials, cremations and ash interments.
- write to the NSW Premier and Minister for Lands and Property asking that they urgently reverse their decision to impose a new tax on all burials and cremations.
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