The three Rs: rates, roads and rubbish

By BERNARD ORSMAN

So you're not bothered about council elections. They're a big yawn.

But what happens when the rubbish is not collected? Or, worse, if you are one of thousands of Auckland City dwellers denied a wheelie bin.

Or your local Rodney District Council disintegrates in name-calling and becomes a national joke.

As Herald columnist Brian Rudman put it at the height of the Auckland rubbish row, people tend to be very forgiving of their councils - until they muck up the basics.

So what do we care most about? What are the things that will influence our votes in October?

Tradition says three basic services - rubbish, roads, water - plus the rates we pay for them. A council that delivers on these is performing up to the mark.

These days we can add planning disputes under the ever-controversial Resource Management Act, with a few interesting personality contests thrown in for diversion.

This is how the battle-lines look on the main issues so far.

RUBBISH


Who can forget the brave new rubbish reform in Auckland City? There was confusion over collection days, overflowing bins and a City Vision-led ban on giving thousands of residents a new wheelie bin.

It was based on a policy allowing multiple properties with one rate demand, such as blocks of flats, just one red-top bin. The inconsistency led to a hotel getting one bin while a nearby competitor received 398.

No one questioned the goal of halving the rubbish mountain, but it was a public relations disaster. Other cities, like Waitakere with its composting machine, have reduced rubbish and delivered environmental benefits without fuss.

Meanwhile, in the Waikato, people are furious about a megadump for Auckland's rubbish which will eventually fill a valley at Hampton Downs and cover an area 1.5km by 800m.

WATER


Delivering water to your home, taking away the wastewater, and stormwater overflows into Auckland streams and harbours combine to form a political hot potato.

No more so than with Auckland City's retail water company, Metrowater, which has softened its user-pays policy to reduce the water bills of large, low-income families, and survived attempts to abolish it.

On the North Shore, it is expected to take $250 million to improve stream and beach water quality - but the work is going to take 20 summers. North Shore homeowners face an extra $500 wastewater charge a year over the next decade. They already pay $380.

ROADS


In Auckland, this means traffic congestion. Debate rages over more roads versus public transport. For the first time, Auckland councils are united in their wish to build a new $1.2 billion public transport system.

The first step is an integrated rail, bus and ferry terminal at Britomart. Aucklanders have been telling the council to "just get on" and build Britomart, which bodes well for Auckland City councillors who campaigned to rethink the original scheme and came up with a more people-friendly version.

Unity on transport has sparked talk of a super city, seen in business circles as the way to make Auckland more internationally competitive.

In the provinces and rural sector, roading is still the number one call on rates, but there is never enough. You only have to experience the holiday weekend bottleneck on the one-lane Kopu bridge leading to the Coromandel.

RATES


A sleeper this election. The practice of holding rates in election year remains.

This term, most increases have been modest and some of the bigger ones were to fund depreciation of assets like drains and roads.

A warning. Be wary of candidates or political tickets promising to hold or cut rates.

An Auckland example: Citizens & Ratepayers campaigned in 1998 to keep rates within the level of inflation. Months later, C&R councillors voted to increase rates 10.8 per cent. The same politicians are promising this election to freeze rates.

TOWN PLANNING


The challenge of squeezing up to 1 million more people into Auckland in the next 50 years through high-density housing is causing a huge uproar in suburbs where councils have failed to first get people onside.

Whole streets of four, five and six-storey apartments are the new infill housing of the century, with lax planning controls being exploited by greedy developers.

The Resource Management Act (RMA) is another issue frustrating local government, ratepayers and businesses alike. A proposal to amend the act to give the public the opportunity to contest non-notified decisions is a big negative for business but welcomed by the likes of those who were given no say over AMP's 34-storey skyscraper on the Auckland waterfront.

VOTE FOR ME


If issues like the RMA bore you into joining that 50 per cent of people who do not vote at local elections, there are always personality clashes to entertain you.

The best ding-dong this year is in Auckland City, where two former National Party ministers and one-time friends, Christine Fletcher and John Banks, are clashing.

Mr Banks is railing against the Britomart "temple" and Mrs Fletcher, who has still to declare her candidacy for a second term as mayor, is glowing over her success in moving the project forward.

Kiwi International Airlines founder Ewan Wilson, banned from being a company director, looks almost certain to contest the Hamilton mayoralty.

THE FUTURE:


Some ground rules for councils are changing as a three-part overhaul of local government legislation gets under way.

A new Local Electoral Act passed in May sets caps on how much candidates can spend on this year's election. In the biggest cities, Auckland and Manukau, it is $70,000, reducing to $3500 in councils with a population under 5000. Candidates must file publicly available financial returns for the first time.

The second change is the Local Government (Rating) Bill, the first comprehensive review of rating legislation since 1925. It puts a 30 per cent cap on rates revenue from uniform general charges and clarifies that property owners, not occupants, should pay rates.

But the biggest shakeup is likely to come from a new Local Government Bill rewriting the present sprawling Local Government Act.

It will grant councils a "power of general competence" to do anything not specifically banned.

Councils will still be subject to the RMA and other laws like the Building Act, the Biosecurity Act and the Land Transport Act.

Political commentator Colin James says enough controls remain to ensure that it is not a licence for councils to run amok.

Feature: Local body elections 2001