ARCHER REJECTS CHURCH CLAIMS

THE State Government has accused Anglican Bishop Richard Condie of “scaremongering” over proposed changes to the Burial and Cremation Act.

Amid a battle over plans to sell off 76 churches, the bishop has claimed burial plots could cost up to $20,000.

Attorney-General Elise Archer yesterday called on the church to engage in consultation over the laws in good faith.

THE Anglican Church has been accused of “scaremongering” after its bishop labelled proposed State Government changes to the Burial and Cremation Act a “de facto death tax”.

The Government, Opposition and the Save Our Community Souls group have all blasted Bishop Richard Condie for claiming the new laws could forced people to fork out up to $20,000 for burial plots.

But the bishop hit back, saying this was simply what it would cost to be buried in an Anglican cemetery.

“For the last 150 years, we’ve been able to run cemeteries under the current Act in an affordable way for people and these provisions are going to make that unsustainable,” Dr Condie said.

“We’ve been trying to have a conversation with the Government about this. We need the community to know how much this is going to impact them.”

Attorney-General Elise Archer said there was no tax and only the church could decide how to price their plots.

“It is disappointing that such an important issue to communities across Tasmania has now become the subject of scaremongering,” she said.

“The Government expects the Anglican Church would have engaged with the consultation process in good faith.”

Labor’s Michelle O’Byrne said it was a “bit rich” for the church to criticise other people for making money out of the issue when it planned to keep most of the money from its asset sales.

“The Anglican Church decided to sell a vast amount of properties to raise a reasonably large amount of money [of] which only a small amount is going to redress,” she said.

“I think the Anglican Church probably needs to have a bit of a look at itself and its own motivations before criticising a piece of legislation I genuinely think we can resolve.”

Northern Midlands Mayor and Save Our Community Souls chairman David Downie said there were concerns about the proposed law changes but the bishop’s comments were “not constructive”.

Grave prices should be pegged to existing levels and only increase by CPI, he said.

“It cuts out people behaving in a monopolistic way,” he said. “Where did the bishop get the figure of $20,000 from? The diocese is participating in scaremongering.”

The sale decision needed to be delayed until the legislation had passed both houses of parliament, he said.

Southern Midlands Mayor Tony Bisdee said a regulator or the director of local government should be given the power to control and approve price increases for burial plots.

The church says a shift of responsibility for burial plots from families to a body corporate will increase the cost of a grave from $500-$1000 to as high as $20,000.