Christchurch mayoral debate: The Mauger and Meates' rates debate

Christchurch mayoral hopefuls David Meates and Phil Mauger faced off in a live debate as local body election voting is underway. Photo / George Heard

OPINION

Last night, Phil Mauger and David Meates fronted up to the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce Christchurch mayoral debate.

And, as you would expect, they talked about a whole lot of stuff and, inevitably, rates came up for discussion. Hard to avoid really.

So Phil Mauger and David Meates talked about two very different approaches or ways of thinking about rates.

Christchurch mayoral hopeful Phil Mauger at Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce Debate. Photo / George Heard

David Meates' thinking is that the council needs to get more creative and not just see rates as the only way to pay for the services it provides. He said that, if he becomes mayor, he'll be wanting to get more benefits for ratepayers from the council's commercial operations.

These are the companies that are run by Christchurch City Holdings Limited which, he quite rightly said last night, is in a bit of a shambles at the moment with the board chair and board member James Gough quitting recently, and the disaster of a chief executive who's also quit.

Nevertheless, David Meates thinks the council should be getting more out of those companies - the Orion lines company, the airport, the port company etc - for the benefit of ratepayers.

Christchurch mayoral hopeful David Meates at the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce Mayoral Debate. Photo / George Heard

I don't think he's talking about creaming more profits. My reading of it is that these companies have big balance sheets that the council should be making more of.

A bit like the equity someone has in their house and how they can use that to get credit to buy another place or do a renovation. So David Meates' approach is for the council to do more with its assets to try to keep rate increases down.

Phil Mauger, on the other hand, thinks cutting costs is the answer. He wants to cap rates increases at 3 per cent and he said last night that, if he becomes mayor, he'll be wanting the council to "trim out some stuff that is not that necessary".

"We've got to cut our cloth", is what he said.

But, as David Meates pointed out, keeping rates increases at 3 per cent would require "substantial cuts to operational and capital budgets".

So two very different approaches - but the objective is the same: keeping rates increases to an absolute minimum. Show me a ratepayer who's going to say "no" to that.

But it raises an interesting question about rates and the value we get in return for them.

We pay rates to the Christchurch City Council. And I've got to say, that I think we get very good value for money for our rates.

If we start with the basics, I think Christchurch's rubbish and recycling system is brilliant. The bins, the trucks. You can pretty much set your watch to when the trucks are going to turn up.

Water. I've had nothing but positive experiences with the council over water. We had the toby tap where the water supply connects to the house go haywire not that long ago, it was on a Saturday afternoon, and they had someone around within a couple of hours to fix it.

We had a mysterious leak a while ago which took them a while to get around to. But I can't complain about any of the council people I had dealings with over that.

The recycling crew at the dump. Great people. Although, I think what the council charges to dump rubbish there is a bit steep.

Council libraries - brilliant.

I haven't dealt with the council over a building consent for quite a while but I know the service on that front has been a bit average recently.

But, overall, I think I get good value-for-money for my rates.