Brisbane City Council opposition vows to revise fee hike on baby burials
Brisbane’s Deputy Mayor has refused to budge on a “heartless” council fee hike, but the opposition has offered voters an alternative.
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BRISBANE City Council’s Labor opposition has vowed to review a massive burial fee hike on grieving parents should it win power at next March’s local government elections.
The LNP-led council yesterday refused to review a fee increase at their baby memorial gardens, despite The Courier-Mail revealing it had gone up by a staggering 22 per cent to $687.
Brisbane City Council baby memorial fee hike
Council opposition leader Peter Cumming said the fee hike was a “low blow” to families who had lost a child.
He said Labor would review all of council’s grave fees and questioned why the increased fees couldn’t have been phased in over several year instead of “smashing” it on residents in one hit.
“The money could’ve been saved in other areas,” he said.
“There is a lot of waste, there is a lot fat in their expenditure.”
The $687 fee, which includes the burial of a child’s ashes at the memorial gardens at Hemmant and Mt Gravatt, was increased after the council was forced to outsource memorial plaques to specialist stone masons amid silica dust safety concerns.
LNP Deputy Mayor Krista Adams said council would not be reviewing the cost, saying she was disappointed Labor had used it as a “political ploy”.
“The fees and charges for council are many and varied and the reality is if we start waiving fees and charges, where do we stop,” she said.
“The 22 per cent (fee) increase is a cost recovery for the steps we need to take to make sure that our stone masons are safe from the deadly silicosis disease.
“We won’t be reviewing this cost … and we take looking after our workers very seriously.”
Cr Adams said the baby memorial garden service had been used once in the past four months.
A range of other grave fees have also increased well above Brisbane’s inflation rate of 1.5 per cent, including a 12.5 per cent increase on category-one memorial garden fees for a single interment.
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