'Death tax' leaves councillors cold

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The cost of burying two to three people who die each year on Great Barrier Island left Auckland councillors stone cold at the end of a marathon, two-day budget meeting yesterday.

On Wednesday - Guy Fawkes Day - fireworks flew over rate rises and the $2.4 billion rail link, but nothing prepared councillors for the burial internment fee on Great Barrier Island's Tryphena cemetery going from the present no charge to $1350.

The "death tax", according to councillor Mike Lee, was regionalisation of the worst sort.

"It's not going to help this council and create harmony," said the councillor for the Gulf Islands in a swipe at officers' use of the word "harmonisation" to standardise fees across the Super City.

Councillors agonised over the Great Barrier Island internment fee and deferred the matter for further thought.

The fee amounts to a few thousand dollars a year income for the council's $3.2 billion budget.

The budget was hotly debated over two days, no more so in the area of rates where Mayor Len Brown broke an election promise to hold rates to 2.5 per cent this term.

A revolt by Local Boards at a 40 per cent cut in new spending on parks, community services and leisure activities saw Brown and a majority of councillors opt for 3.5 per cent rates increases over the next decade; a cumulative total of 41 per cent.

Right-leaning councillors like Linda Cooper, Calum Penrose and Franklin's Bill Cashmore joined the 3.5 per cent bandwagon. Cashmore's Local Board chairman Andy Baker explained it this way.

A 2.5 per cent rates rise gave his board $6000 to complete a carpark in Pukekohe. A 3.5 per cent increase provides $2.5 million to upgrade sports facilities in Waiuku.

Those are the harsh realities of a harsh budget that stings one-in-four households with double digit rates increases next year, largely because of soaring property valuations.

The budget also provides certainty for an early start on the underground rail link, which Brown says is the city's number one project with overwhelming support by the people of Auckland.