KEY POINTS:
Invention was to the fore when the previous Auckland City Council attended to rates. It devised "charitable payments" from the council-owned Metrowater as a way of constraining the annual rise.
This "water-price-gouging" was termed unethical by the present mayor, John Banks, while his deputy, David Hay, said using the water company as a cash cow "stinks". In power, however, the pair head a council whose artifice comfortably surpasses that of its predecessor.
Perhaps most creatively, the council has devised its own inflation yardstick. Ratepayers are, presumably, meant to be happy that this year's rates and water bills will each rise by just 5.1 per cent, which is touted as the council's rate of inflation.
Never mind that the official rate for the March quarter was 3.4 per cent, and has averaged just under 3 per cent for the past three years. The council rate is actually an admission that it has been unable to restrict tender costs and suchlike to the official rate. It is, in other words, a soft touch.
The disingenuousness does not end there. The council has adopted a variation of the Washington Monument syndrome to dilute any backlash. This involves cutting important or popular services first, thereby scaring ratepayers into thinking they should be ready to contribute more money.
Thus, high on the list of Auckland City's cost-cutting is a multimillion-dollar footpath renewal programme and street cleaning.
To top all this, the council has decided the "charitable payments" from Metrowater will last another three years, despite a parliamentary inquiry damning the practice.
An immediate end to these would have meant an extra 6.6 per cent increase in rates. Water bills, however, would have dropped by 11.9 per cent. Many ratepayers might have been happy to accept this. All want an end to smoke and mirrors.
