Ward Mike: Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ward Mike: Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12687] 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 I do speak to ratepayers and I do speak to local councillors. The idea that we should set rates or limit rates flies in the face of the power of general competence and flies in the face of the principle of appropriate decision-making. 
The ones to make decisions on rates should be the councils. Ratepayers have the opportunity to do something about those decisions come the planning process—every year they have their say on council plans and have their say to shift council plans—and every 3 years they have the power to shift councils if they choose. 
This bill undermines both the appropriate decision-making principle and the power of general competence. It is particularly inappropriate when the Government has been devolving responsibilities to local authorities for some years now without devolving the funds to meet those responsibilities. This bill suggests that local authorities are eager to increase rates. I have sat through so many budget rounds that I can tell members that getting rates shifted upwards is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. Local authorities are most reluctant to raise rates. 
Jim Peters 
: Especially this year an election year. 
MIKE WARD 
: At any time. Are rates unaffordable? I suspect that for some people they are and I suspect that for those people a lot of other things are unaffordable. Are rates good value? Yes they are if we think about what we get for them. The average rate is something like $1000 per year—roughly the cost of a cup of coffee per day per household per year. What do we get for it? If all that we received for that was a road and access to all the places we needed to be that would still be extraordinarily good value. 
Not even rural folk get so little. Most get a great deal more. They get their playing fields libraries somewhere to be buried footpaths street lights toilets that flush clean water parks and gardens. If somebody’s dog bites then our rates pay for somebody to catch the dog and look after it. If somebody’s stereo keeps one awake at night then someone else will come out and do something about that at any hour. If someone plans to build a fish factory next to one’s house then somebody will make sure that that is appropriate. Councils make sure that our properties retain their value by looking after the things that people do around us. 
Are rates too high? For some people they are. I am all in favour of measures that look after those folk who cannot pay—measures to defer rate payments and measures to look at the rate of abatement so that people on low incomes can get a rebate to pay their rates. 
I have been around the country talking to people and one thing they have been saying to me and to local authorities is: “Remember that little authorities don’t play by the same rules as big authorities. We need you to let us make our rules different in order to do things differently.” 
A rule like this treats all local authorities the same and in fact they do have different needs. Not all local authorities have the same pressures on them. Those that are growing certainly do and local infrastructure demands will increase along with increasing populations. The best thing we can do for them is to ensure that the small communities from whence those larger growing communities derive their populations are kept strong. 
We find that in places such as Nelson where the population grows every year—and we trumpet the virtue of growth—our water supplies become inadequate and cost a great deal to upgrade. Our sewerage treatment becomes inadequate and is very expensive to upgrade. Our roads are inadequate and what do we do? We simply try to build more of them and of course we fail miserably there as well because we cannot keep up with the rate at which cars keep coming on to the roads. 
I am sure that this bill will look popular on the surface but it panders to the misinformed the ill informed and those who have little idea about where their rates go. As I said if we sit down and think about it the price of a cup of coffee a day for all the things we get for our rates is extraordinarily good value. The Greens will not support this bill.