Editorial: Mayors sign a confession

The mayors of three Auckland cities put their names to an article we published yesterday which tried to justify rate increases of 8 to 10 per cent a year for the next 10 years. The mayors, Sir Barry Curtis of Manukau, Dick Hubbard of Auckland and George Wood of North Shore, had the temerity to begin their article thus: "With the present debate about rate increases, the question must be asked of everyone who wants to cut rates, what are you prepared to do without?"

That is an obfuscation unworthy of them. Nobody has suggested cutting rates, nobody needs to do without anything. That the article continues in this silly vein, "Shall we start charging for books at your library ... tell us which roads should not be maintained ... what level of public neglect of public services will you tolerate?" tells us more than they intend about the calibre of our civic leaders.

It tells us their projected rate increases, many times the likely annual inflation rate, are not needed primarily to finance new infrastructure, as we thought when we questioned that purpose in an editorial last week. The thrust of the mayors' response is that rate rises of this size are required to maintain present operations. If this is so, the weakness of Auckland's local government leadership is worse than we feared.

The mayors complain that the Government has loaded additional responsibilities on to councils without adding to their revenue. They mention the microchipping of dogs, checks on leaky buildings and the consultation requirements of resource consents. They neglect to mention that these sort of costs are recovered in fees and charges. The Government has given councils a broader brief, but it is for councils to define their "community aspirations" and no community has voted for additional functions that require 10 per cent more revenue every year.

If rate increases are needed to maintain ordinary council operations, our elected representatives are letting us down. Political representation is the only means we have of putting local bodies under the sort of financial discipline that competition exerts on private firms. Political discipline works reasonably well nationally, where no government would dare raise tax rates every year, but it seems not to be working in local government.

Local body officers seem too easily able to convince their elected masters of their need for more money, and contractors and suppliers to local councils are no doubt equally aware that ratepayers are a soft touch. The mayors complain that, "newspaper letter-writers use phrases such as 'the cost of bureaucracy' as if they know exactly how many people it takes to design a road, run a library service or prune trees". The letter-writers do not presume to know any such thing; their suspicion is that mayors and other elected members do not know either.

How closely do councils look at the staffing they really require for road design, libraries and anything else in their purview? How rigorously do they check their tendering and contracts to see that they are driving hard bargains on ratepayers' behalf? There is no excuse for any organisation to need revenue increases of 8 to 10 per cent a year, every year. Many an operation in the private sector manages to increase the volume and quality of its output by using its existing resources more efficiently. Councils never seem to produce productivity improvements because they are under no apparent pressure to do so.

By signing the article, the mayors revealed that they believe anything less than the councils' scheduled rate rises amounted to a "cut" in essential services. They have signed a confession of fiscal weakness. Voters next year should not forget it.