Melburnians planning to bury a loved one in the city’s cemeteries are facing steep price hikes, with some grand memorial options surging up to 400% over the past decade.
Cemeteries across Australia, particularly in the inner city, are nearing capacity and those vying for a burial plot must fork out for prized pieces of real estate due to rising labour and construction costs.
Burial plots have previously been described as the most expensive pieces of land in Australia. According to published price lists, they appear to have risen considerably, similarly to property prices across the country.
At the Fawkner Memorial Park, which is run by the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) and is one of Australia’s largest cemeteries, a single crypt has jumped from $8,675 in 2013 to $41,080 – an increase of more than 370%. A lawn grave at the cemetery has increased by more than 210% in the past decade to $6,935.
At the Melbourne General Cemetery – operated by the Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (SMCT) – a dual crypt was valued at $16,940 10 years ago, but the cheapest now will set people back $91,480 – a 440% increase.
While more than half of Australians opts to be cremated, crypts in mausoleums remain popular among Melbourne’s large Italian community, according the Australian Funeral Directors Association.
Prof Michael Arnold, who is part of the University of Melbourne’s DeathTech research team that studies the intersection of death and technology, said burial fees were being affected by rising labour and construction costs.
“It’s very labour intensive. Digging the grave, maintaining the cemetery. The cemetery is dealing with the increases in labour costs,” he said.
“Running a cemetery is like running a housing development – the cost of the real estate is a demand and supply equation.”
Metropolitan Melbourne has two not-for-profit trusts that operate more than 20 cemeteries across the city – the SMCT and the GMCT.
Cemetery prices increase annually in line with CPI and are regulated by the state’s department of health. But the state’s cemetery legislation states that trusts may fix fees and charges with regard to the costs of operating the site. This must be approved by the department.
A GMCT spokesperson said cemetery trusts could not charge a fee that had not been set by the department and published in the Victorian government gazette.
“The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust is a not-for-profit, community-based organisation reporting to the department of health,” the spokesperson said.
“This structure ensures services are available for the whole community and the prices are government approved and gazetted.”
Arnold, from the university’s school of historical and philosophical studies, said cemeteries offer societal value, including family continuity and historical preservation.
But he stressed there were costs to the wider community, such as the damaging environmental effects of traditional burial practices and the demand on resources such as concrete, steel and herbicides to maintain the sites.
“There’s also the opportunity costs where land is set aside for memorial purposes. This is land that in an alternative universe could be worth billions for housing. It’s quite significant,” he said.
Arnold said spikes were not isolated to Victoria but each jurisdiction regulated the sector differently. Victoria has a system of “perpetual tenure” for graves and crypts, meaning people pay for an indefinite lease on a burial. This is also commonly the default in New South Wales and Queensland.
But Western Australia and South Australia have had a system of grave reuse, with tenure periods starting at 25 and 50 years respectively, slowing the speed at which cemeteries reach capacity, although families have the option to extend tenure in certain circumstances.
Arnold said perpetual tenure meant the cemetery only had one opportunity to derive an income “which has to last forever”.
“They need that one sale to provide enough money in 100 years, 200 years, to maintain that plot they’ve sold,” he said.
• This article was amended on 11 July 2023 to clarify the starting tenure periods of grave reuse for Western Australia and South Australia.
