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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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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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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