Deborah Coddington: City will go to hell in a handcart at this rate

The recent squealing about rates has not been entirely honest. Granted, there is much profligate spending by local body politicians, but some ratepayers think they shouldn't pay for the privilege of living in a property with million-dollar views, magnificent addresses, superb neighbourhoods and lavish attention from councils.

One Remuera man on the telly was not questioned when he claimed all he got from the council for his several thousand dollars a year was rubbish collection. That's patently absurd.

Suspend reality for a moment and imagine the situation if city and regional councils did levy rates only for rubbish collection and nothing else. So the rates for every home and office would be exactly the same, be they in Parnell or Otara. Taking into account the cost of labour, vehicle maintenance, supply and maintenance of wheelie and recycle bins, tip upkeep, fuel and other overheads, a fair charge would be $14 a week, or $2 a day. In return, the only service each property would get from the council would be rubbish disposal.

What would happen?

Better keep the 4WDs because there'll be no more money spent on roads. Forget trying to find your way to that little cul-de-sac off Victoria Ave; street signs won't be replaced.

The libraries will have to be closed, but all those books will fetch a bit on Trade Me, and the Remuera Library will convert nicely to apartments or a restaurant.

Likewise the Town Hall, though the Aotea Centre might prove harder to shift.

Sell the parks. Heaps of room for housing developments on Mt Hobson, Mt St John, Mt Eden, to say nothing of The Domain and Cornwall Park. That'll save plenty of rates too - no more trees to prune, flower-beds to maintain, lawns to mow.

Alternatively, councils could charge entrance fees, commensurate with the cost of retaining such prime real estate - about $100 a family per visit should just about cover it.

Over on the North Shore, they'd get a fortune selling those waterfront parks and beaches. It'd be just like the promenade in Nice - roped off to keep the hoi polloi out and the Eurotrash tanned. Aucklanders always fancied themselves as being cosmopolitan.

Who cares if families can no longer enjoy a day at the beach in the summer? It's getting the rates bills down that really matters.

Anyway, there'll be no swimming (unless it's in the tank you've installed to collect rainwater because the town supply's puckarooed). No money for sewage treatment will mean all that effluent from the expensive European whitewear and Auckland's millions of toilets will go straight into the tide.

I haven't finished yet. The council could really make a killing if it closed down the Auckland Public Art Gallery and sold off its art collection. Why have art? As the Business Roundtable recently noted, there is no economic theory which shows a "creative" city, a "hip, trendy or bohemian" place attracts talent and encourages growth.

For heaven's sake, cities aren't places where people should take time to stop and smell the flowers.

Grey Power's national vice-president Don Chapman should be heartened by a move like this. At least his "asset-rich but cash-poor" members will be able to keep living in their swanky houses while their communities go to hell.

In just over a decade I'll be a superannuitant. I'm looking forward to being a Grey Greedie.

"We will remember them", is the warning Grey Power sent to NZ First this week when the party said it wouldn't vote for Rodney Hide's rates-capping private member's bill. Not that Grey Power members ever voted en masse for Act anyway.

But the Grey Greedies would have been more honest if they'd said "we have forgotten them", referring to Muldoon's price and wage freezes which protected those on fixed incomes but forced governments to borrow up large, hocking off future generations and placing the country in the situation where the only way to attack the massive debt was to sell state assets.

Why should people my age care about debt and how it's repaid? We won't be around in 30 years when the country once again reverts to Polish shipyard status.

Forget the botox. I want to look my age when I'm 65 so I can join my contemporaries on the wireless, grizzling about absolutely everything, and threatening to hold political parties to ransom if I don't get what I want.

As a fully signed-up member of Grey Power I'll give my vote to anyone who imposes a price freeze. To hell with coming up with an alternative way for local authorities to raise revenue.

Poll tax anyone?