Capital Value Rating A Local Government Election Issue?

Local body rates increase every year, often not only much faster than inflation but a significant contributor to it! A recent article published by Stuff https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/127908609/can-christchurchs-next-mayor-slow-councils-runaway-spending?cid=app-iPad shows a 60% rise in rates for the Christchurch City Council since 2014.

Every wannabe mayoralty or councillor candidate has a position on rates increases whether they know it or not. Put another way, if a candidate doesn’t understand that an offer to double Council services is an offer to double council rates they lack the acumen needed for the job. Regrettably, local body elections are not like any other job interview. We only get to hear what the candidate wants to tell us and never all we need to know!

Most times the question of rates never arises. It is a question that needs to be asked of all people who wish to ‘serve’ their community.

Residents and ratepayers should be seen as employers and shareholders to the Mayors and Councillors. Some Councillors seem to see ratepayers as a source of funds for an overt or subversive agenda to build or do something that they don’t want to pay for themselves. Cost benefit analysis rarely if ever comes into it.

If those candidates were prepared to make the hard choices in relation to council spending instead of promoting what are in a lot of cases, issues that are more feel good than must have, we might see a more conservative but much more valuable use of the ratepayer’s funds. At the very least, we as ratepayers should be given the right to understand what it is we ‘are buying’ when we tick that box on the ballot paper.

The worth of and need for some council services are without question. Councillors need to concentrate on the proverbial “roads, rats and rubbish”; the basic needs that sustain a good community including libraries, playgrounds, drinking water, waste water, storm water and important public infrastructure.

The challenge and questions for all who want to stand in these next local government elections is; have they got the political courage to disclose their agenda and the cost implications of that for ratepayers? If they don’t then their election (if successful) is based on misrepresentation and opens them to criticism that they do not have a mandate.

Clearly the converse applies. Those who can convince a majority of the merits of their manifesto have a clear mandate. Better yet, they can expect to deliver it efficiently, rather than face delays and costs that come from the opposition and criticism of voters who can legitimately feel they have been duped. Majority support for something is a good reason to think that the endeavour will be persisted with over time, rather than cost the community even more as councils lurch from one focus to another on a 3-yearly cycle.

Every candidate in the upcoming local council elections across New Zealand should be compulsorily required to give at least a basic explanation of what they consider to be priority spending of the ratepayer’s money, and how they expect to hold rate rises to; at or below, the rate of inflation, or even lower future rates bills for those communities which they wish to serve.

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