Grey Power wants Government to remove 'punitive tax' on rates

Grey Power members are agitating for the Government to soften the impact of rates increases by removing the goods and services tax on them.

The Government is expected to reap about $13.5 million from the Auckland Regional Council's rates collection this year.

A resolution to press the Government to remove GST from local authority rates was passed nearly unanimously by 450 people at a North Shore Grey Power meeting yesterday. Grey Power North Shore president Alan McCullough said the GST was "a punitive tax on a tax" and should be removed.

"We are the only country in the world that charges taxes on taxes. That GST has got to go and that in itself will make a huge difference to people on low incomes who choose to stay in their own homes."

Residents were carrying more of the rates burden than before because of the removal of the business differential. Yet, businesses could reclaim part of their rates bill and the GST back in rebates.

However, Finance Minister Michael Cullen has said GST on rates will be retained.

The meeting also resolved to ask the Government to pass legislation requiring district and city councils to collect regional council rates, as in the past.

A leader of the Regional Ratepayers Rebellion, David Thornton, told yesterday's meeting that he was trying to get copies of legal opinions obtained by the ARC on the feasibility of resetting this year's rates.

He was also waiting for chairwoman Gwen Bull to reply to his request to let him address the ARC at an extraordinary council meeting next Wednesday.

Several people spoke from the floor at the Grey Power meeting.

"They look after dotterels, but they don't look after their own people," one man said.

"We are fed up. We want something done by central Government to resolve this whole situation. It's absolutely bloody ridiculous, quite frankly."

North Shore MP Wayne Mapp said he supported a campaign for the ARC to reset its rates.

At the least, he said, an expected increase of 18 per cent for next year's rates should be cancelled.

The Government should release some of the income from petrol taxes to free up transport spending, rather than make North Shore residents pay a disproportionate amount for a rail system they did not use.

Northcote Labour MP Ann Hartley said many North Shore residents worked in Auckland, Waitakere and Manukau.

"At the moment we are all paying the price for transport not working. We have to put money into roads, into rail and every other form of transport we can."

She criticised the ARC for "ignoring" the North Shore City Council's submissions, saying it should have adopted North Shore's land-value-based system with a business differential.

About 70 people attended another rates protest meeting in Balmoral yesterday, where former Auckland City Mayor Christine Fletcher endorsed a motion to pay only the amount of last year's rates, not the increase.

A protest march has been organised from the bottom of Queen St at noon on August 23.

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