MEDIA RELEASE 28 June 2012

[statement from David Thornton]

Auckland Council advertising misleads ratepayers.

Approved budget is wealth re-distribution on a massive scale.

The Auckland Council has been running Radio and newspaper advertisements claiming that its new rating system is ‘fairer all round’.

The new system will see tens of thousands ratepayers facing rate increases of 10% each year for the next three years.

A much lesser number will benefit from a rate decrease of 5.6% from 1st July and smaller decreases in the following two years.

All this was confirmed at today’s meeting of the Council’s so-called Governing Body.

This is wealth redistribution on a massive scale, with high value home-owners paying substantially higher rates to subsidise lower value home-owners, with no consideration of the income of the owners in either group.

This cannot be considered fair by any stretch of the imagination.

Mayor Len Brown and his supporters are leading the Auckland Council into an era of high spending and consequent high rate increases.

NoMoreRates has received many emails and phone calls from ratepayers who are now beginning to discover how much their rates will increase.

Urban residents and rural ratepayers, and businesses, are all subject to this totally unfair new system.

Instead of making false claims about fairness the Council should be telling the truth about the system, and seek ways to help the thousands of low-income ratepayers who will be financially dis-advantaged buy the new system.

ends

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