Opinion: Rates increases are headaches for everyone

Tararua District Council's rates increases are tough on everyone. Photo / Paul Taylor

Opinion

There’s been a lot of people in the community upset over Tararua District Council’s rates increases for 2023-24.

Many are saying they won’t be able to find the extra money to pay the new rates, and some are seriously considering moving away.

I don’t pay rates, but that’s because I don’t own my own home. I rent. That doesn’t mean, however, that I am not affected by rate increases. And having had the experience of sacrificing something in order to pay bills, or surviving for a week on only $10 worth of food, I do understand those concerns.

I’ve always had the false perception that because I pay rent, I don’t really have the right to speak up about these things. There is also the fact that I have to remain neutral, being a journalist. Of course, I’m allowed to have opinions, but I can’t include said opinions in an article.

Often I’m at the media table in council chambers when such matters are discussed, and I hear the councillors voice the concerns of the community.

There are times when I feel that they themselves feel they are between a rock and a hard place. I know a lot of people in the community feel the council is unsympathetic to people’s concerns, especially over the current economic climate.

However, while I wish I could speak up on behalf of the community in those meetings and tell them, ‘Hey, this isn’t right’, and, ‘How do you think people are going to be able to pay this?’, I can’t. Again, it’s not only that need to remain neutral, but also that perception of, well, I don’t pay rates, so I have no place in the discussion.

It’s not an easy job, being a councillor. They have to make decisions on behalf of the community, even when such decisions will be unpopular. That also means they often take the brunt of criticism from the community when things aren’t going their way.

I’ve covered my share of council meetings in my time as a reporter, including one meeting at another council where things got very heated, and I’ve seen discussions get out of hand, but I’ve also learned a lot about why certain things don’t get done by councils when people in the community want them to. There are processes they have to follow, and as frustrating as that can be, it’s a necessary evil.

Take, for example, work to repair a road damaged by Cyclone Gabrielle. Would you rather have the repair done quickly, only to have it fail in the next storm, or have work done behind the scenes first to make sure the repair doesn’t have to be repeated again and again? If it comes down to cost, maybe it seems cheaper on the face of it to do a quick repair, but by investing more money into geotechnical work, it ends up costing less long-term.

The short of it is, these rate increases have caused a lot of headaches for everyone concerned, including council staff and our elected members. They know there are people struggling with the high cost of living. But it’s a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The question is, if the rates remained at the same level instead of being increased, how is the council supposed to meet the increased costs for everything else and then continue to offer the same level of service everyone expects?