Coddington Deborah: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Coddington Deborah: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:610;Page:7638] 
1. DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT NZ) 
 to the  
Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues 
: Following her advice yesterday that “Rates are one of the things that affect all of our choices about where we live” and that she regrets the choices that rate hikes have forced some Auckland ratepayers to make what choices was she talking about for the Aucklanders who can’t afford to pay their rates that are due today? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues) 
: 
 Aucklanders living in Rodney or North Shore City who believe they cannot afford to pay their rates should contact the Auckland Regional Council today. Their options include arranging to pay their rates in 10 instalments. The Auckland Regional Council also has provision for people in extreme financial hardship to have their rates payments postponed. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: What advice does she have for Mrs Janie Farquharson who is an 88-year-old widow with a blind 63-year-old son now that the rates bill on her home of 64 years has hit $8589 a year up $1400 from last year and who has been told that if she cannot pay it she should move; and where exactly does the Minister think Mrs Farquharson should move to? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: The regional council advised me that only 5 percent of Auckland residential ratepayers will pay more than $500 a year for regional council rates including GST. I would suggest that anyone in a very highly priced property—and the estimate I have is that property with the rates quoted would probably be worth over $3 million—should ask family and financial and legal advisers how they can arrange their affairs so that they can pay the rates that are due. 
David Parker 
: Did she suggest that Aucklanders should move out of Auckland? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: No I have never proposed that. As a passionate Aucklander born and bred in Auckland I truly believe that Auckland is the best place in the world to live. However one of the things that is causing problems for Aucklanders and for people who want to work there to have businesses there and to live there is the lack of infrastructure and that must be paid for. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Would she agree that even though there are no rail tracks to the North Shore 88-year-old Mrs Farquharson and her 63-year-old blind son are subsidising through their Auckland Regional Council rates rail passengers at a rate of $9.30 per passenger movement; and does the Minister stand by her words yesterday that: “the rail network upgrade is affordable sustainable efficient and user-friendly”? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: My words were that that is what we are working towards. We are also working towards a transport system that is integrated. Ratepayers residents and people in business throughout New Zealand will benefit from good transport including rail roads ferries buses and trains. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Minister tell the House how she sees herself as Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues; does she see herself as the Minister who must advocate for imposing rate rises and what have you on Aucklanders or does she see herself as I would see her as the Minister who must fight for Aucklanders on the whole range of issues? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: I take that compliment very sincerely. I do believe that Auckland has to have the infrastructure it needs to serve Auckland and New Zealand. The problems of infrastructure in Auckland are seen as a barrier to New Zealand’s present and future prosperity. We must find a way with taxpayers ratepayers and users so that we can afford the infrastructure that every New Zealander needs for the sort of future we are all working for. 
Mike Ward 
: Is the Minister not concerned that the funding of the eminently sensible improvements to Auckland’s public transport system is to be done by the highly questionable shifting of the rates burden from the business sector and the rich to the poorer homeowners via a uniform annual charge and has the Minister got any measures up her sleeve to address that issue? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: That is entirely a matter for political debate in Auckland. That is what the Local Government Act 2002 gives local authorities the power to debate. I understand that over 600 of the 420000-odd ratepayers did make submissions to the Auckland Regional Council. I hope this is an indication that Aucklanders will get involved in what the real issues are. And it is a political debate. 
Paul Adams 
: How can the Minister possibly reconcile her view expressed yesterday that Aucklanders and the rest of the country are now paying to meet the city’s transport needs through petrol tax with the fact that only half of the tax collected actually goes towards roading? Given this is she lobbying Cabinet for the percentage of funding allocated by Transfund for local roads to be increased from the present 27 percent maximum to 80 percent; if not why not? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: Any money taken out of the consolidated account that goes to things like health education and policing has to be made up some other way. Right now we are not actually paying for the roads and the transport services we need. It is not a matter of finding money out of thin air; New Zealanders one way or another are going to have to pay. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Minister understand that one of the principal causes of infrastructural pressure in Auckland is that every year her Government is imposing upon it the population of Rotorua 
from abroad hence driving up costs and rates; and what reports has she submitted to her Cabinet colleagues on that if any report at all? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: I understand that a significant proportion of the people coming to Auckland are in fact from the rest of New Zealand. If we do not provide good infrastructure across the whole of New Zealand that pressure will go on. Excluding anyone is not the answer. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I pointed out to the Minister that she and her colleagues are imposing on Auckland the population of Rotorua every year from abroad in addition to anyone from around the rest of the country. I am talking about immigration which does not include somebody from Invercargill or Kaitaia. Would she please address my question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I wonder whether the Minister could just touch on that point. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: I think there are many reports which Cabinet has seen showing that immigration at worst has an equal effect economically and at best brings prosperity to New Zealand. 
Heather Roy 
: Does the Minister agree with her colleague the Hon Chris Carter that the new Local Government Act 2002 gave ratepayers like Mrs Farquharson and her son “more opportunity to have their say in what their local city district or regional councils do” and that the new Act will “make it harder for councils to increase rates without good reason.”; if so why are Auckland ratepayers in revolt? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: Yes I do agree. I have rung the North Shore Citizens Advice Bureau and it has told me that no one has complained of an inability to pay his or her rates. The bureau has had inquiries from people wanting to join the rates revolt. However that is a matter for Auckland. In the end this has been well advertised. The Auckland regional growth strategy stated that this infrastructure was necessary. The regional land transport strategy has been reviewed every 3 years and indicates that this transport infrastructure is necessary. Business has been calling for it and Auckland has been calling for it. I am sorry that people are upset but in the end this is a democratic decision that Auckland local authorities have made. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Given the Minister’s answer that business the general population and the whole of the Auckland community have been calling on the Government to do something will she now admit that all that the Government has done is to invest in a rail system that is dilapidated and seriously lacking in its own infrastructure and that the cost is simply being foisted on to ratepayers like Mrs Farquharson and will be so for some years to come? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: We have had some complaints from people around New Zealand who are paying more through petrol tax to maintain transport services around New Zealand and to help Auckland deliver better services. We have to invest in the dilapidated railway system because right now that is all we have got. If we want a better one then we have to pay for it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There are too many interjections. I do not want to forbid them all together as I am entitled to do. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Minister give us her opinion on whether she thinks it is fairer and more appropriate for Auckland ratepayers to pay for transport rather than money being used that is collected in petrol tax and goes into the consolidated account? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: The Government has made a vastly increased contribution to roads and to public transport in Auckland. For the first time we are making sure that Auckland gets its share of the Transfund capital funding. We are now putting nearly three times as much into public transport. We paid $80 million for rail access rights. The Government and the rest of New Zealand have made a huge contribution. Aucklanders have repeatedly said through their leaders that Auckland must help. I do not think it is fair that elderly people are forced to pay vastly more. I think it could have been stepped in in a more progressive way but the regional council democratically arrived at a decision. It is not for Parliament to start to attack that decision. 
Rodney Hide 
: Has the Minister given any thought to improving her ability to listen to what Auckland ratepayers are saying given that she has told this House that on the basis of one phone call to the North Shore Citizens Advice Bureau she has concluded that ratepayers do not have a problem with their rates; and has she also given thought to making rates fairer by capping the rate of increase that can occur in any one year? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: The member could bring in a member’s bill to suggest that. I understand that Dr Brash ruled that out at a meeting on the North Shore last week so I do not know how much support he would get. But fundamentally the level of rates determines the level of infrastructure. We are saying that that is a local decision that needs to be made democratically and locally. I suggest to the member who was inquiring that if he had been to the number of meetings that I have been to in Auckland and had talked to the number of people whom I have talked to he would be aware— 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: We didn’t see you in Rodney. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: No because I was at a Ministers meeting in Australia. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The answer was far too long. 
Dr Don Brash 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am concerned that I was quoted as ruling out last week any change to cap local authority rates. I did not suggest that I was opposed to that at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member’s word will be accepted. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am following this up because the pattern has already been broken by a point of order. I think that was a bit unfortunate; the Minister’s hearing is very bad from that meeting Also I would like to point out that I do have a member’s bill and she will be given the opportunity to vote for some justice for a change. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is just making a debating point. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Does she have any sympathy for the plight of Mrs Farquharson who told me this morning that the only way she would be leaving her family home of 64 years was feet first; and does this Minister stand by her advice which despite her denials was given in this House yesterday that people like Mrs Farquharson should pay up or move out? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: That is not what I said yesterday. I have deep sympathy for Mrs Farquharson. I too have a passion for my garden. Everybody makes decisions about where they live in terms of what they can afford. I feel really sorry for her. I feel sorry for a lot of my elderly neighbours in Ponsonby who are in very very highly priced properties. They need good advice and they need to act on it. I am sorry that there is nothing this Parliament or this Government can do when we are addressing Auckland’s infrastructure needs to deal with that. 
Deborah Coddington 
: In the light of that answer does she agree that one of the rate payment options that Mrs Farquharson has is to mortgage her house to the North Shore City Council which Mrs Farquharson told me this morning the council has advised her to do and what is it about her Government that it expects retired great-grandmothers to remortgage their homes to pay these rates? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: The regional council advised me that anyone paying the rates that are being quoted would have a property worth in excess of $3 million. I think that Mrs Farquharson and others like her have many more choices than some other people who live in Auckland have. 
Heather Roy 
: I seek leave of the House to table a media statement by the Hon Chris Carter on 30 June 2003 which states that the Local Government Act 2002 will make it harder for councils to increase rates without good reason. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.