Kieran McAnulty says the Government has the devastation of a cyclone to pay for, and has been advocating quite strongly for support for the Tararua District. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Kieran McAnulty says the Government has the devastation of a cyclone to pay for, and has been advocating quite strongly for support for the Tararua District. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Kieran McAnulty says the Budget, due to be announced on Thursday this week, will be very much “back to basics”.
“We’ve got cyclone recovery to pay for and we’ve got cost of living challenges to address,” the Wairarapa MP and Minister for Local Government said.
He said the cost of living was something affecting every single country in the world and there were only certain things a government could do to address that.
One of the issues at the forefront of his mind is rates.
Tararua District Council was currently consulting on its Annual Plan, which included a proposed rates increase of 13.18 per cent.
McAnulty said the Government can’t dictate rates as that was entirely down to councils.
“But we can do things that help with that, and the water reforms is one of those.”
Coast Road in Ākitio was one of the areas severely damaged by Cyclone Gabrielle. Kieran McAnulty said the cyclone recovery would be addressed in the Budget. Photo / Tararua District Council
He said Tararua District was one that would benefit most from the reforms, adding that it was the district he pointed to whenever he had to explain why the Government was doing the water reforms.
“We have a massive geographical area here. We’ve got the fourth-largest roading network in the country. And there are less than 12,000 ratepayers.”
He felt there was no way the council could afford to do what it needed to do by itself.
“That’s not an attack on the current council. That’s a situation that they’ve inherited.”
McAnulty said Tararua District Council had a massive amount of debt on its books associated with water services and the district was facing huge expenditures just around the corner.
“It’s estimated that this district has to find $600 million over the next 30 years to upgrade and maintain all the water services.”
It would cost so much because it was such a huge area, with little towns here and there, each with their own needs, he said.
“If it was 12,000 people in one town, they might be able to do it. But it’s 12,000 people spread across so many, and they’re so far apart that one water treatment plant can’t service more than one town.”
He said the water reforms would make it affordable for ratepayers and remove the debt the council was currently servicing “off their books completely”, which would also take a lot of pressure off.
One of the concerns talked about with regard to the Three Waters reforms was that rural councils would end up with less while the bulk of the funding would go to the main centres.
McAnulty said he had heard that concern and that had informed changes he made when he became minister.
The change to the reforms included control being spread across 10 entities instead of four, guaranteeing every council a seat at the table.
While the Government was confident the needs of rural and provincial areas would be met under the previous plan, it was guaranteed that the priority “is that the needs of the smaller areas will be met at the same time as the needs for Palmerston North”.
“That’s the benefit of going around, listening to people and making changes according to that.”
He was sure that under the reforms, people in the Tararua District would be facing savings of up to 80 per cent compared to what they would be under the status quo.
While there was criticism of Government spending, particularly during the Covid response, McAnulty said there was a reason for that spending - to keep people in jobs.
“At the time, the National Party said we should be spending more. Now they’re saying it’s because we spent that money that we’ve got high interest rates. You can’t have it both ways.”
Cutting Government expenditure was not giving people what they wanted.
The area where Te Ahu a Turanga, the Manawatū-Tararua Highway, is being built. Te Ahu a Turanga was one of the investments the Government had made which would benefit the Tararua District.
