Rates shock in the pipeline, predicts C&R Now

A rates shock of $300 or more a year awaits thousands of households being kept in the dark about the size of their bills, says the minority Citizens & Ratepayers Now team on the new left-leaning Auckland City Council.

"Ratepayers don't know what is coming down the track," C&R Now councillor Doug Armstrong told a budget meeting yesterday.

C&R Now launched a stinging attack on plans by City Vision and its allies for a 9.7 per cent rates rise and a redistribution of rates from low to high-value property owners. The centre-right ticket, which lost control of the council at last year's elections, also ganged up on Mayor Dick Hubbard, who has endorsed the package.

The leader of C&R Now, Scott Milne, said about 12,500 households were up for a rates increase of more than $300. Some would pay more than $1000.

Mr Milne said the previous council might have given some ratepayers sizeable percentage increases, but in two instances these amounted to $48 and $57 a year, "not the hundreds and hundreds of dollars" this council was planning.

Mr Armstrong said people needed to be made aware of the magnitude of the increases, otherwise when they got got their first rates instalment "they would revolt".

He said the council, which stood on a platform of increased consultation, should inform every household in its next rates instalment what it would be paying in the new financial year.

Households could then have an input into the consultative process for the draft budget, he said.

The idea was squashed by Mr Hubbard, City Vision-Labour, Action Hobson and the two independent councillors, Bill Christian and Faye Storer.

C&R Now attacked Mr Hubbard for "coming out earlier than he should" and endorsing the City Vision budget, which raises rates by 9.7 per cent or $35.7 million, for extra spending on transport, open space, urban design, heritage and community projects.

Mr Hubbard hit back when Mr Milne urged the council to maintain a zero debt policy.

"It is inherent, right throughout the Western World, for councils to promote the use of debt to build infrastructure. It is luddite to turn around and say we at Auckland City Council should go against all normal financial practices ... and say we are going to have a zero debt policy," Mr Hubbard said.

Mr Armstrong said Mr Hubbard's statements represented "flat-earth thinking". "He needs to realise we are not in a position of making cereal in South Auckland. This is a local authority, a bit like running your own household."

City Vision leader Dr Bruce Hucker defended Mr Hubbard, saying councils were political institutions that needed to use the best techniques, including debt, available to them.

* The council yesterday rejected a recommendation to close the newspaper reading room at the Auckland Central Library and move the newspapers to the ground floor to save $17,000. Cuts to the information desk and interloan service were also rejected.