Auckland Rates
Dick Hubbard campaigned on the basis of reducing the level of rate rises. Then he put them up 9.7% in his first year. He then said the increase would be less the following year.
However they are set to increase by a massive 13.2%. That makes two broken promises.
Hat Tip: Whale Oil
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Tags: Local Body Politics
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:49 am
What annoys me most about this is the fact that it will give that unnatural tosser in Whanganui Michael Laws more ammunition to blow his own trumpet about his specious “nil rate rise” tripe. FFS, Hubbard, haven’t we suffered enough?
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:56 am
I’d be interested to see a link to the wording of the campaign promise on rates if you have one.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:57 am
Quite frankly I don’t care. Someone has to finance the Auckland “lifestyle” and it should be the residents of the city.
My rates have gone up nearly 12% and about 1500 residents still do not have power and are freezing their collective bollocks off!
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:23 am
Well Aucklanders keep electing these people.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:24 am
Move to Lower Hutt – in real terms, our rates are falling as the council is raising them by less than inflation. And is forecast to do so for the next ten years.
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:12 am
Has anyone else noticed that Hubbard is incapable of giving an interview without using the word “appropriate” or its corrollary “inappropriate”?
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:26 am
While all Councils have their little vanity projects, greyish-white elephants and sundry follies….the bulk of their money is usually spent on core services such as roading, transport, water, sewerage and public facilities such as libraries, parks, halls etc. Any hint of a breakdown in those rate rise figures?
Like most Western cities, Auckland has a centuries old infrastructure that needs upgrading, and anyone can make the books look good for a decade or so by deferring essential maintenance. Inevitably the problem is just passed onto the next generation with boots on.
Lower Hutt has kept rates rises low for sometime now, and yet despite substantial private sector expenditure in the city, and more planned, it’s traffic woes are getting steadily worse because the Council hasn’t actually built any significant new roading infrastructure for about a decade now. The access to the city across the ageing three-lane Melling Bridge is a joke, the need for a proper cross-city connection to Seaview, the need to fix up the long-standing eyesore entrance to the city at Korokoro, the need to free up traffic flow on SH2 and get rid of the intersections all along it…the list of delayed projects in the Huttgoes on and on.
Not spending money makes it easy to keep rate rises low….but what we are really getting is just more of the same old cycle…we bleat out one side of our mouths when we are charged for an essential service, and then whinge out the other when if it fails to meet expectations. Like with the electricity. Oh well.
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:42 am
What else can you expect from left leaning assholes. Promise anything to get into power, then totally abuse the elctorate!
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
“What else can you expect from left leaning assholes. Promise anything to get into power, then totally abuse the elctorate!”
As opposed to right-leaning assholes who just promise anything to get into power and then get busted repeatedly for criminal offences involving jetskis, vehicles, cellphones or basically anything else asshole-ish they can find?
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Logix, just about all of the SH2 issues start with Transit and their funding constraints etc.
Not much point building a new bridge at Melling until decisions are made on the intersection with SH2.
There is probably a stronger case to be made with a better cross link lower down the valley, rather than at Melling. Somewhere between the Ewen bridge and the Seaview one.
HCC spends absolute loads on Dowse, has more swimming pools per captia than anywhere I know, Petone, Hutt, Stokes, NaeNae, Eastbourne are the ones off the top of my head. There are also significant libraries in pretty much all of these places too!
HCC main woes was a previous council who spent millions on a PARKING BUILDING! Go figure! That has pretty much been dealt too.
Personally, I have been disappointed in David Ogden, since I voted for him. However the council is still definitely headed in the correct direction compared to the previous two mayors, (Terris and Evans) IMO.
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:58 pm
The 9.7% rise last year was AVERAGE we residents of the Eastern Bays increased by 27%. They were very crafty in using the word average on nearly all the press releases.
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Silas – I share your disppointment in Ogden. They never are the rate slasher’s they make out once they get the big seat.
My gripe is that councils spend money on trips overseas, sister city relationships and crap like that, but close the sports grounds when they get wet because they worry about the damage to the grass. Spend less on crap and more on grass seed so my Under11 rugby team can actually play some games of rugby this season.
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Brian, DO you know of any companies that have traded as a result of sister city relationships?
The sports grounds will need drainage, seed and fertiliser, all three.
Now the HCC is involved in some form of company that is investing in broadband internet. Grrrr!
Still Chris and Roger do try and keep Ogden in line!
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:32 pm
The gripe should not be over whether Auckland needs to spend money on infrastructure. It does. There are at two issues (IMHO) that need to be considered.
One issue is that the present council has also shown itself to spend money on things that are demonstrably not core-business or infrastructure, such as social housing or pork barrel politics like silly grants. For example, the council wasted $5 million in penalty fees alone over the Queen St trees thanks to its failure to consult properly. Neither does it give confidence to the ratepayer that rates rises are being spent wisely when Christine Caughey spent $600,000 to be “invested” into “sustainable housing” companies that don’t pay any dividend to the city, or paying for social housing that is central government responsibility. After all – that’s why we have a housing corporation.
A second issue is one of equitable rating. I believe its wrong to whack the rates up based on a persons property values, when the owner of the property may not necessarily have an income that matches the property value. For example, this is most often the case with the elderly, or those on fixed incomes. Hence why user pays, uniform annual charges, or new revenues outside of property based rates ought to be relied on more, so that less of the burden falls on property values. It’s also more equitable, because why should a person pay 25% more in rates one year if they don’t get any extra services? Another related factor to consider is that elderly property ownersy have spent a lifetime contributing towards city infrastructure already. Why should their rates be dramatically hiked over the next 10 years to pay for infrastructure they will never use or see?
It’s also on the nose that Auckland has not received its fair share of transport funding from petrol taxes. The money that should have gone to Auckland over the better part of a decade that has instead gone into the central coffers would have made a significant difference to rail, bus and road improvements in the Auckland region. If Auckland has indeed been shortchanged (it pays 35% of the petrol tax, but only gets 28% back) then there’s a compelling case for the govt to pony up to compensate Auckland. A lump sum to electrification of rail and double-tracking of some of the rail corridors would be fantastic.
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Londinium (like many major European cities) is into its third millinium and Auckland hasn’t made it to it’s second century. How exactly are they comparable?
Interestingly Hutt and Auckland are of a similar age though.
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:49 pm
“it’s (Lower Hutt) traffic woes are getting steadily worse because the Council hasn’t actually built any significant new roading infrastructure for about a decade now”
LOL
Now let’s all place ourselves in Logix’s make-believe world and pretend that the above doesn’t apply to Auckland….
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Walt, you were after a link that referred to Hubbard’s position on rates?
http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=737F641A-39E2-11DA-8E1B-A5B353C55561
He also promised a review of what he called a “disgraceful rating system” – which I note has not occured yet.
http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=4B755876-39E2-11DA-8E1B-A5B353C55561
hubbard quote from the GABA election meeting was:
Hubbard: I am concerned about aged. My mother, 78, pensioner, had a 42 per cent rates increase in last few years. Those with high valued properties had virtually none. It’s a disgrace, needs to be addressed. Will be looking at rates release for elderly and those struggling.
http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=4773FBE2-39E2-11DA-8E1B-A5B353C55561
I note that the 42% rates increase Hubbard was referring to included ARC rates, and thus was a disingenuous remark on his part. For the record, Mrs Hubbard’s (and many other elderly ratepayers) rates increases for Auckland City rates have been significantly higher under Dick Hubbard than previous councils.
June 23rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm
I disagree that David Ogden hasn’t achieved much. His problem is that he doesn’t appear to do much because he can’t harp on the paper each week about the new Council Project he’s wasting money on.
As for Melling, Petone and Other SH2 improvements, they are solely Transits problem. I think the Cross-Valley link is 60% Transit funded as well. As a Waiwhetu Rd resident (about 100m north of the Epuni Baptist) I am very keen to see it proceed.
June 23rd, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Democracy
June 23rd, 2006 at 3:26 pm
where Mr Hubbard anguished for a council that wasn
June 23rd, 2006 at 3:40 pm
And you have the wonderful waste of ratepayers money by the community boards. The Western Bays one spent tens of thousands putting in a performance area in Western Park – not because the public were crying out for it (regular park users, none of whom are on the Community Board opposed it vehemently) but because they had been allocated the money and if they didn’t use it that financial year they lost it.
So far I haven’t seen anyone use the damn thing, but it sits as a reminder of how to waste money.
June 23rd, 2006 at 4:06 pm
You can have Auckland. Sounds like the rich and the unemployed will be the only ones able to live there in the furture.Besides Auckland should only have one council, they seem to have more then you can poke a stick at. No wonder their rates are so high they do the same bloody job about 10 times.
Many councils are more interested in political power then any real interest in civic duty, rates are their mealticket and they will milk the ratepayers for every dollar they can screw out of them. Until rates are set in law to match the inflation rate or the people take to the streets nothing will change.
June 23rd, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Aucklanders deserve the wanker for voting him into office in the first place.
June 23rd, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Hubbard is in a coalition. He doesn’t have the numbers to have his own way on all major decisions. The increases will be largely driven by the left faction of his coalition in the council.
Similar comments apply to any other political coalition in any sphere e.g. Promises broken by National when they went into coalition with Winston Peters.
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:46 pm
“Auckland should only have one council, they seem to have more then you can poke a stick at. No wonder their rates are so high they do the same bloody job about 10 times.”
I am comfortable paying my rates for North Shore City council, rather than having wild-eyed lefties running the show as is sadly the case over the bridge.
Auckland’s cities are close, but very different demographically. North Shore has a right-wing majority in council. Incidentally we also get consistently lower rate increases than Auckland City and the highest rate of business growth in the country. The city is also geographically small enough to be able to see where your rates are going.
I’m all for the status quo.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:07 pm
CH, you may be for the staus quo but from an outsider looking in that is the crux of the problem.
The big issues never get resolved in greater Auckland because there is never consensus between the different Councils.
A second bridge will never ever be built because North Shore has differing opinions as to where the bridge should go from the opinion of Auckland.
That isnt even on the agenda but the amount of time wasted consulting neighbouring councils on infrastructure issues is absurd.
One Council governing from Bombay to Albany would help to streamline the process.
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:38 pm
There already is a second bridge.
You want the third one now?
June 24th, 2006 at 7:18 am
I think a supercity is a good idea in a 30 year timeframe, but the first step should be the consolidation of natural boundaries first into three smaller admin blocs.
Auckland and the western/central part of Manukau City ought to merge into one city. Perhaps also with some of eastern Waitakere City. Part of Waitakere should merge with the North Shore. the south of Manukau should merge with Papakura. Franklin should join Waikato. Rodney should join North Shore.
June 24th, 2006 at 10:04 am
“The big issues never get resolved in greater Auckland because there is never consensus between the different Councils.
A second bridge will never ever be built because North Shore has differing opinions as to where the bridge should go from the opinion of Auckland.”
So you’re saying if there was just one council we would not have differing opinions on the suitablility of major roading projects and therefore no opposition?
This is exactly the reason I believe merging the cities is a bad idea. The reason there are still separate cities is because they represent the interests of their residents. Look at the extreme view- local government entirely abolished and everything contolled (even more so) out of Wellington. I somehow doubt in this scenario that local representation would be of a very high standard.
In actual fact I believe it is currently ARTA and Transit that have the majority of sway on the develoment of transport infrastructure planning in Auckland anyway. Maybe they just need to pull their thumbs out and start showing results.