Council subsidy for the logging industry

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Council’s proposed plan increases rates by 30 percent over the next three years. This will take average rates to $4000 per home. Let’s call this the “Stoltz Shock”.

There are three big problems with this plan. They are that it:

■ continues a ratepayer subsidy of $ 6-10 million per year to repair the damage to local roads caused by the logging industry;

■ maintains a $1-3 million per year resource consent fee subsidy for the monitoring and enforcement of the logging industry’s environmental performance;

■ fails to invest in the city’s population growth, thereby forcing up the price of land and housing.

The ratepayer is subsidising the repair of damage done to local roads by logging trucks. There are examples of millions being spent to repair a rural road only to have the logging trucks completely trash that road within a year. This has been happening on a regular basis for more than 10 years. It’s the Government and ratepayer repeatedly paying for the repairs. It needs to stop. The ratepayer cannot afford it.

Council should be using the window provided by the cyclone recovery to put in place a $2-5 per tonne levy on logs arriving to the port, raising $5–10 million per year from 2026 to pay for the ongoing damage caused to local roads.

The logging industry makes upto $300 million per year. It can afford to pay its own costs.

The same also applies to monitoring and enforcing of the logging industry’s environmental damage. Resource consent fees to the industry fall short $1–2 million per year. Again, this is an industry cost not a ratepayer cost.

This lack of action on forestry subsidies has been the Council’s call. It’s overdue time they and the Mayor explained why they want these costs to fall on the ratepayer and what they intend to do about it.

On the third issue, the city’s population has grown by more than 6000 in recent years. Council is failing to adequately invest in the new water infrastructure needed to support this growth. This failure is forcing up the price of residential land and housing.

This is a council that has abandoned the city ratepayer and needs to be called to account.

John Kape