Media Release
City Vision-Labour Councillors - Auckland City Council
For Immediate Release
Thursday 5 March 2009

New $23 Rugby World Cup Targeted Rate Hidden by C&R

Yesterday Citizens and Ratepayers (C&R) councillors continued on with their plan to make all Auckland City ratepayer households, whether they be next door neighbours in Mt Albert or miles across the Gulf on Great Barrier, contribute $23 each to pay for costs associated with the running of the Rugby World Cup in 2011. This is just an additional imposition on top of the roughly $60 million in total of capital and operational spending Auckland City ratepayers will be coughing up for the Rugby World Cup as part of their general rates.

Eden-Albert City Vision Councillors Glenda Fryer and Cathy Casey said, “Auckland City ratepayers made it quite clear that they don’t want to pay extra for the Rugby World Cup during the last local body election, and it adds insult to injury to make them all pay through a $23 targeted rate. Mayor John Banks promised Auckland ratepayers would not have to pay and yet he and his Citizens and Ratepayers (C&R) team voted to proceed with this targeted rate.”

Councillor Glenda Fryer said, “Yesterday C&R included this $23 targeted rate on all ratepayers in Council’s budget for the 2010/11 financial year. However C&R have kept any information on the new targeted rate ‘below the radar’ in draft consultation documents. The public needs to know about the targeted rate if they are to comment on it in the draft 10-year plan which goes out for public consultation on April 16!”

Councillor Cathy Casey said, “Information about the Rugby World Cup targeted rate is hidden on page 286 of the 287-page second volume of the draft 10-year plan, which is available to the public only on request. City Vision-Labour Councillors had to make an amendment yesterday to ensure that the RWC tax is referred to in the summary public consultation document. So much for the transparency and accountability that C&R promised during the last local body election campaign!”

“The summary public consultation document that goes out to householders will be a sham if important elements such as a new specific targeted rate for Rugby World Cup are not mentioned. We do not want the Auckland ratepayers to feel they have been deliberately deceived,” concluded Councillors Casey and Fryer.

ENDS

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