Community – Connection – Cooperation – Climate
Rates are going through the roof and people are struggling. Even so, I’m going to say something that most mayoral candidates won’t admit. Rates are going to keep going up and anyone who promises that they can stop that happening is lying to you. The Government would sack the council and install commissioners if we did what it would take to stop rates increasing.
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Barry told The Post he was concerned that some candidates in the coming local government election were suggesting that shifting water services from council balance sheets opened up new spending or debt to invest.
“It’s a dangerous position because there will potentially be the desire to load up with additional spending, additional debt ‒ councils may want to do that because their financial or balance sheet may look a lot better.
“But of course, it will be the ratepayers who get hit with that, because they will still have to be paying water bills.”
He said with rates rises already unaffordable in many places, there should instead be a corresponding drop in rates, in line with that of water bills.
For example, he said if the new Wellington water provider had already been created, the rates rise at Hutt City Council would have dropped from 12.6% to 7.6% — a 5 percentage point decrease.
Any decrease in rates less than 5 percentage points would therefore actually be an increase to the ratepayer.
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Source Whakatāne district councillors have expressed surprise that cemeteries, public toilets, animal control, liquor licences and consents are not considered core services for councils by the Government. “This is bizarre,” councillor Nandor Tanczos said. “The (Coalition Government’s) list of core services doesn’t include a whole bunch of functions that the Government itself requires that we […]
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National’s hidden agenda was unaffordable rates. And now we are having to address it.
National’s supporters in this campaign here in Whakatāne are telling us to pay for National’s $440 million water alternatives we must sell our publicly owned assets and privatise everything that moves. This means we will pay the same of higher rates, and then pay again for the services our rates used to cover.
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Asked again if water costs would be cheaper, he said, “I’m out of time”, and walked into the debating chamber.
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Whakatāne Mayor Victor Luca talks about what a rates cap would mean for our town and the services and publicly owned assets that we would lose should rate capping cast it’s dark and gloomy shadow over our council.
Continue ReadingLet’s reimagine the future of urban life — one city, one community, one happy place at a time.
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Source Thomas Manch PDF The Government has passed the final pieces of legislation required for its Local Water Done Well water reforms into law. Both the Local Government (Water Services) Bill, and a separate repeals and amendments bill for this legislation, were passed on Tuesday afternoon, cementing into law a water reform programme years in […]
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Source The nomination period has ended. A big mihi/acknowledgement to all our candidates who have stepped up to stand for Whakatāne District council – it takes heart to put yourself forward for your community. See who is standing for Whakatāne District – below are the candidates in the running to lead where they live. Important […]
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Many councils will be delivering water services “in-house”, also limiting their debt-borrowing capacity.
Already the Department of Internal Affairs has sent letters to six councils asking they reconsider going it alone, and join with their neighbours.
But with the September 3 deadline approaching, the Government may instead be reaching for the stick.
Local Government Minister Simon Watts can appoint Crown facilitators or specialists to push councils towards forging regional entities.
This may mean the Government finds itself, to some degree, in the position Labour was — effectively compelling councils to work with their neighbours.
And it would be doing so after letting councils determine their own fate and, in a case like Stratford District Council in Taranaki, acting on the views of their constituents.
Essentially, the Government would be riding roughshod over local opinion.
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Wellington City Council did support several parts of the bill, such as measuring council performance, strengthening transparency and accountability and providing regulatory relief.
Core services have been defined in the bill as network infrastructure, public transport services, waste management, civil defence emergency management, libraries, museums, reserves, and other recreational facilities.
While museums were listed as a core service, festivals, live performances, stadiums, concert halls and large theatres were not. The submission points to the economic benefit of events such as the council-supported World of WearableArt show, which contributed more than $31 million to the city last year.
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Mayors and chairs commented to the survey “that a share of the GST revenue generated in their districts should be returned to local government”, saying GST was the “clear favourite” revenue stream of people surveyed.
Southland Mayor Gary Tong told the survey Treasury should “actively look at” the amount of road user charges and GST paid by people in his region, which was then spent in other parts of the country.
Waipā District Council Mayor Jim Mylchreest said councils should get a “share of GST”, particularly the GST paid on council rates as well as a share of GST paid on the development of new sections.
“LAs [local authorities] and developers provide all of the services and take all of the risks and Central Government pockets the GST on every new section created,” Mylchreest said.
Act and National have recently floated similar ideas. National wants to at least explore the idea of councils getting the GST collected on rates, while Act has launched a policy to share half of the GST revenue earned from building a new house with whichever local council issued that house’s consent.
Continue ReadingSource Dave Stewart PDF Dave Stewart In response to Lenore Craig’s letter (Denying democratic rights, Beacon July 30),there is one glaring issue with this that seems to have been left out of this discussion. David Seymour proudly announcing his voter suppression measures has to be one of the most interesting exchanges of the current government’s […]
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Source The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has released its final list of candidates for the upcoming local body elections in October 2025. Governance Manager Steve Groom says he is pleased with the diversity and number of nominations received this year, noting that every regional council constituency will now hold an election. “We have more […]
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“If you’re on the dormant roll, your record won’t show up on vote.nz, but you’ll be re-enrolled as soon as you fill in an enrolment form with your current address.
“If you’ve got any concerns about your enrolment, please get in touch with our enrolment team on 0800 36 76 56 or enquiries@elections.govt.nz and they can check your enrolment.”
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In a statement yesterday, Local Government Minister Simon Watts said some households were getting frustrated by unfair rate hikes during the cost-of-living crisis.
It followed comments at the recent Local Government NZ (LGNZ) conference, where Watts compared councils to children and suggested that letting them do what they wanted might lead to bad choices.
Olds, who attended the conference, told his colleagues and LGNZ representatives that he was disappointed that councils continued to get “beaten up by central government” over things that were out of their control.
Councils had defended rising rates as they were dealing with increased infrastructure costs, unfunded mandates, insurance, and inflation.
LGNZ chief executive Susan Freeman-Greene said tensions between local and central government were “a challenge”, and that councils bore the impact of frequent changes to government policy.
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Source Dave Stewart PDF I want to thank Peter Minten for his opinion piece (Where is your research?, Beacon. July 25) and acknowledging that the forces of conservatism are lining up our community owned assets for sale in order to pay for our 3 Waters infrastructure. Honesty like that needs to be applauded. At a time […]
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“There are some steps available to central government such as the appointment of an observer or the replacement of a council with commissioners … but that tends to be used as a last resort and only after ministerial intervention.”
The agency he suggested would be set up like the Public Service Commission, “with the ability to provide early, proactive support for local government and effective advice to ministers when issues arise”
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Our world needs to know that friends can disagree and still be friends.
We can have strong disagreements and still be friends.
It’s because we are friends that we can disagree.
This is my message to the Whakatane Community – let’s remember that, at heart, we are all human and count on each other.
We need to heal our divisions.
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The cost of water services would be going up a lot, Kircher said, but less so under a joint model.
Now, keeping the services in-house, his council’s total rates take would have to increase by 25% next year, and a further 30% the year after. The council would be reviewing its long term plan to find savings and lessen this.
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Win 4 hours of handyman labour in the Whakatāne / Ōhope area simply by buying a raffle ticket and at the same time support the campaign to get Dave Stewart elected to the Whakatāne District Council To enter either buy a ticket at the Dave Aid Concert on August 2nd or secure your tickets by […]
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“We all want lower rates increases. I want lower rates increases, I know you want lower rates increases, I hear from my community they want lower rates increases. But it can’t be at the expense of our children picking up the tab because of our negligence today.”
The Selwyn mayor tells Newsroom a key problem is councils have few alternatives to raise money.
The best tool the Government could give councils, in his opinion, is to return GST spending on new houses locally. “That would be a game-changer for us,” he says, noting between 1000 and 3000 houses have been built each year in Selwyn over the past five or six years.
Continue ReadingAfter biking almost a thousand kilometres encouraging people to ‘say yes to Māori wards’, a 15-year-old Whakatāne High School student pulled into Parliament’s forecourt with a wheelie.
Jack Karetai-Barrett left Whakatāne on 28 June aboard his Focus Atlas 6.7 gravel bike covering more than 894km to Wellington.
“If I could keep going I would, but school holidays finish soon and I won’t be able to get home in that time,” he said.
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OPINION: What do we do about 78 councils, rising rates and the need to improve efficiency and focus on the basics?
Some argue the Government should simply pass a law to cap rates and let ‘the market’ sort itself out. But history tells us blunt interventions often generate unintended consequences.
When councils have focused purely on rate minimisation in the past, they’ve generally cut infrastructure maintenance, inspections and deferred capital investment, contributing to a significant proportion of New Zealand’s $200 billion infrastructure deficit.
Government wants to grow the economy and speed up housing development. Yet, ironically, it needs councils to enable housing growth, through investments in roads, water, transport and other essential services.
Capping rates without addressing the funding model simply kneecaps councils’ ability to invest. Without money, projects don’t proceed and assets deteriorate.
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“Having created a situation where councils are being forced to put up the rates to pay for things like water infrastructure, the government’s now trying to blame them for doing something that they really don’t have a choice but to do.
“Ultimately if the government don’t want councils to increase rates, they’ve got to find another way of funding the water infrastructure that we need.”
Local Government New Zealand president and Selwyn District mayor Sam Broughton said rates capping could be “disastrous for communities” and leave councils without the means to fund essential infrastructure.
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