A review into the costs and pricing of internment services in NSW has been welcomed by a funeral group's chief operating officer.
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Walker Funeral Group's Michael Bolton is supportive of the IPART review.
The funeral group became the owner of Innes Gardens Memorial Park Crematorium and Lawn Cemetery on July 1 when it bought the facility from Port Macquarie-Hastings Council.
Cemetery operators and communities are now digesting the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal's draft report as part of a review of costs and pricing of interment in NSW.
The report calls for cemetery operators to offer affordable standard burial plots.
It recommends all cemetery operators be required to publish itemised prices and the state government set up a website to allow the comparison of prices across all cemeteries in NSW.
Innes Gardens Memorial Park is transparent in its pricing, Mr Bolton says.
He said there were fewer variables at Innes Gardens Memorial Park than a monumental mason cemetery, for example.
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"We only have lawn-type graves, so there are not too many different internment fees and burial charges," Mr Bolton said.
"From our perspective, it is quite straightforward, because the family know they need to purchase a site and a plaque to go on that site."
He agrees there is a need for itemised prices, which are in place at Innes Gardens Memorial Park.
Mr Bolton added the funeral directors had a schedule of Innes Gardens Memorial Park fees on hand to provide to families.
He said the Philip Charley Drive facility's fees were quite easily read, managed and understood because of fewer variables in burial options, given it was a lawn cemetery.
The report also calls for operators to make provision for caring for burial plots and cemeteries in perpetuity.
The ongoing care and protection of existing burial and cremation remains at Innes Gardens Memorial Park and honouring of existing reservations and prepaid burials were among the matters addressed through the contract of sale terms.
October 2 is the closing date for public submissions to the IPART review.
The draft report is available on the IPART website.
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