Well, I guess when you read this from a year ago, I kind of walked my way in to running for council without even realizing it.
If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s people who say they don’t like something but haven’t got the balls to front up and fight for what they believe.
So here I am.
On Tuesday evening from 6.30 until 7 pm I stood in a demonstration outside the Whakatane War Memorial Hall where a Public Meeting was being held to discuss our 32% Rates Increase.
The meeting was attended by around 150 people.
The doors were closed until just before 7 pm which gave me ample time to address those present and advocate for more commonsense government by calling on the people to support the campaign to Postpone The Tax Cuts
I’ve attended a few other meetings over our eye watering rates increases and can advise that the causes for our astronomical rates hike are:
1. Inflation
2. Interest Rates
3. Water Reform.
While the anger expressed at these meetings has been directed at the local councilors a lot of the problems are all caused by factors that are not controlled by them.
There are other projects that the council is embarking on and other costs that are incorporated into the rates rises, and I understand the council team leaders have all gone through those costs line by line to initiate savings and that project is ongoing.
I believe that the focus of the anger for these increases needs to be directed at the real villains of the piece, the new coalition government.
The coalition partners are currently arguing over what new taxes and levies will be introduced and how brutal the cuts to essential public services will need to be to pay the $15 billion the tax cuts will cost,
Those arguments are becoming sharper and sharper by the day as the finance minister fails to get the sums to add up.
Instead we are witnessing an ideological debate within our cabinet that risks splitting the coalition back into it’s three separate parts.
The fact is we can’t afford the tax cuts and we will need to add $15 billion of borrowing if the coalition goes ahead with them.
That borrowing will prolong the recession, fuel inflation and do little or nothing for hard working low paid workers who seem to be the target the new coalition is aiming the thrust of it’s attacks at.
At Tuesday night’s meeting the support to Postpone Tax Cuts was overwhelming. In fact only one gentleman indicated he supported them. He was younger single man who declared he would be getting $30 ‘and that’s a box’ he said.
When asked if that was $30 a week, or $30 a fortnight (as the National Party tax cut calculator returns results as per fortnight) he didn’t know.
Everyone else was supportive of not borrowing $15 billion to give large handouts to people who were not struggling and ripping to shreds our essential public services to pay for it.
When you look at Whakatane’s rates increases and the numbers behind them, the biggest cost is water reform.
We have to find $440 million dollars of ratepayers money to fund this. Like all other councils in Aotearoa, we simply can’t do that.
This was the reason that 4 years ago councils approached central government to address the problem. They came up with a solution that saw central government creating water reform bodies that were fully funded by government. However, this plan included taking into account treaty obligations and that’s where the opposition parties and others focused their rage.
Treaty issues took center stage and the usual suspects all came out and race became the issue rather than water reform.
All three Partys in the new coalition opposed the water reform plans, and within 100 days and using urgency so as not allow public debate, they cancelled the water reforms.
This sent the shock wave of massive rates increases to council around the motu.
Tax Cuts for the wealthy funded by borrowing $15 billion is this government’s priority,
Water reform, not so much.
So here we are, with the government that campaigned on rates increases of this magnitude, handing out $3 billion to landlords in tax relief for their tax free investments, cutting out free prescriptions to the sick, cutting out school lunches for kids who, for some, is the only meal they will get that day, gutting the essential public services that we all need and use every day, reducing the minimum wage increases that come at the end of the inflation cycle, scrapping fair pay agreements, scrapping smokefree targets so they can tax tobacco sales and a raft of other backwards thinking nonsense, so they can give the wealthy a huge handout.
But what can you do?
Well, you can let people know that you’re not buying into this reckless administration’s wasteful spending.
Sign the petition to Postpone The Tax Cuts at
https://chng.it/HtDyHDK495
Join the Postpone The Tax Cuts Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/postponetaxcuts
Attend local demonstrations in support of Postponing the Tax Cuts (these are advised on the Facebook Page)
Write to your local MP asking that the tax cuts be postponed.
https://www.parliament.nz/…/have-your-say/contact-an-mp/
The important thing is to do something that let’s others know they are not the only ones who are think borrowing $15 billion to fund the lifestyles of the wealthy while everyone else pays for it is a very bad idea.
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— at Whakatane War Memorial.
