ARC turns down rates reform call

By BERNARD ORSMAN



The Auckland Regional Council has voted to stick with the same rating system that hit households with increases as high as 657 per cent last year.

Councillors, who face the polls in seven months, yesterday voted 7-5 to keep the status quo after promising a review in the face of a ratepayer revolt. The boundaries for the public transport rate will not change either.

The ARC has now twice rejected the idea of introducing a business differential leading to lower rates for households.

Charging businesses 1 1/2 times the residential rate would have saved nearly 300,000 households between $5 and more than $500.

Instead, the council is planning to raise rates by 3.2 per cent. The public will have the opportunity to make submissions on the rates increase, including options for a business differential, from April 5 to May 3. Last year, councillors ignored most submissions and introduced the system, with strong backing from business.

ARC chairwoman Gwen Bull yesterday denied a suggestion by councillor Mike Lee that a consensus that had been building towards help for households this year was scuttled after lobbying by business leaders, including Michael Barnett, who is an ARC councillor and chief executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce.

Mrs Bull said a meeting she held with Mr Barnett and members of the Employers and Manufacturers Association one day before another vote on the rating system last month had no ulterior motive.

Ratepayers Rebellion spokesman David Thornton said it was interesting that leading business figures were at the ARC in the lead-up to the rates plan when a consensus was building for a business differential.

Mr Thornton said he would probably stand for the ARC under a Rates Rebellion ticket, especially if the ARC was given huge new powers under the Government's $1.6 billion transport package.

The ARC's business-friendly affairs came under further attack by Mr Lee and Sandra Coney, who questioned spending more than $1 million a year on the Auckland Regional Economic Development Strategy that "has done nothing" since being set up in 2002.

Councillors voted to put Areds under ARC control to provide, in the words of Mr Barnett, regional leadership and a regional brand.

A report on Areds said the present governance and funding were inadequate and it would cost the ARC and Government between $1.7 million and $2 million to keep going.


HOW THEY VOTED

For the status quo: Chairwoman Gwen Bull, deputy chairman Philip Sherry, Michael Barnett, Judith Bassett, Ian Bradley, Catherine Harland, Craig Little.

Against the status quo: Bill Burrill, Sandra Coney, Mike Lee, Brian Smith, Paul Walbran.

Absent: Dianne Glenn.